Saint Patrick drives a snake up Belfast's Donegall Square

Regular readers may recall I was optimistic when I heard, way back when, that Belfast city council would help fund this year's St Patrick's day parade in an effort to reduce the traditional sectarian nature of the event. The hope was that the day could be steered in such a direction that people could still enjoy celebrating Saint Patrick's day, but that the celebrations wouldn't be restricted to tricolour waving republicans. Indeed there had been talk of bans on offensive emblems and anyone wearing 'offensive' football tops (you know the ones I mean) being given a green T-shirt to cover it.

I've been curiously optimistic about the potential for such celebrations since the ideas were first mooted, so decided to pop along to see how the parade went - even doing my bit for Saint Patrick and wearing a green t-shirt (the only one I own which isn't a Northern Ireland shirt).

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I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the devolved Assembly might be restored.. some day anyway. According to reports today it seems that the DUP, UUP and SDLP are all in a position where they can negotiate over what form exactly the resumed devolution might take, with all in agreement that an alternative executive could be formed (eg from NIO ministers who already act in similar roles).

In theory it would make the ministers more accountable for the decisions they take with the power they already wield. Personally, I can't lose the nagging doubt in the back of my mind that having an assembly which resembles the school debating society (with a fraction of the professionalism and decorum) wouldn't improve matters much. Based on recent spoutings from the various parties, it would do little more than give the politicians an official forum for their seemingly endless MOPEfest - at the taxpayers expense of course. I'd be tempted to just shut the whole thing down and invest the hundreds of thousands of pounds a year saved into something wortwhile.

Not forgetting some of their previous cockups, what benefits would a shadow assembly bring? Answers on a post card...

56 athletes are in Australia, ready to compete in the Commonwealth Games and hopefully bring a few medals home to Norn Iron

The 2006 Commonwealth Games begin tomorrow morning at 9:00am (GMT) and it seemed an appropriate time to wish the best of luck to all 56 athletes flying the flag for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth games in Melbourne. Unsurprisingly, our main medal hopes seem to be in boxing and shooting, while BBC sport claim 62 year-old grandmother Margaret Johnson to be "one of the most dominant names in women's bowls."

They'll be hoping to better Northern Ireland's performance in 2002 in Manchester, after which they returned home with 5 medals (2 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze). The BBC have a list of Northern Ireland's "ones to watch" on their website.

Come on guys and girls - I'm sure you'll do us all proud.

12 years now since the first IRA ceasefire and Northen Ireland seems to have as much trouble with its image as ever. Myself and the girlfriend watched Mind Hunters last night. I'm no good at classifying films into genres but I'd describe it as a low-brow, popcorn munching psychological thriller. It should interest the sort of folk who watch CSI.

The main reason I'm commenting on it is a line near the start, when the characters, FBI agents on a training exercise to test their psychological profiling abilities, arrive on a purpose-built navy training facility. One of the agents, in an English accent, declares "It's like a cross between Beirut and Belfast."

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Nigel Dodds seemingly wasn't happy with the police arresting a barful of loyalists last week - why I'm not sure. I didn't blog it at the time but I did mention a little about the immediate Sinn Fein reaction to the arrests of 17 loyalists taking part in a rehearsal for a show of strength.

I was disappointed to read that Nigel Dodds declared the police operation "heavy-handed" (hat tip to Slugger). This is nothing more than a stock response uttered by the DUP whenever loyalists are arrested; one which they've picked up from the Sinn Fein school of victimhood. Soon we'll be hearing them talk about "political policing" and other victim-speak they've picked up, mark my words.

The DUP also complained that there seemed to be a discrepancy between how the police treated loyalists terrorists as opposed to republican terrorists.

Who does Nigel Dodds think will be the main benefactors when police arrest those extorting money from businesses owned by unionist people, operating in unionist areas serving a unionist community? He should be congratulating the police for carrying out an operation like that, arresting 17 suspected "leading loyalists" without sustaining or inflicting a single serious injury! If the police aren't able to operate in a similar manner in nationalist areas, well that's too bad for the people of those areas - their businesses will continue to fall prey to extortion rackets. That's not a good thing but it's not something the DUP should be using as an excuse to feel sorry for themselves and project any more of the victim mentality than is already taking over society here.

The problem is that playing the victim has been shown to win votes in Northern Ireland, and the most inherent flaw in democracy is that politicians are just prostitutes for votes, and as long as people vote based on superficial nonsense, that's what our politicians will give us.

I think a new campaign is needed. I therefore call on everyone in Northern Ireland to make a concerted effort to Make MOPEry History.

Buying cheap red diesel is a victimless crime, right? I mean the dealers are champions of the common people, providing ordinary folk access to goods at discounted prices. The only victim is the chancellor of the exchequor.

Try telling that to the wildlife of Cullyhanna in south Armagh, where "hundreds of litres" of red (agricultural) diesel were dumped into a small river. This isn't the first case of large-scale environmental damage being caused by those scamps either. There was an oil spillage from illegal fuel in west Belfast last July and, while I can't find a source online at the moment, I'm sure I recall hearing of a fuel smuggling operation which led to a spillage somewhere near the border in Armagh or Tyrone.

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Blogging's been slow for the past couple of days, I've had a lot of work to do and haven't been able to attend to EU as much as I would have liked. I thought I should highlight a couple of quotes from this article in yesterday's Belfast Telegraph though.

A bar in North Belfast was raided the other night in a police operation against the UDA in the area. The police received a tip-off that a rehearsal for a "show of strength" would take place in the bar, possibly involving several leading loyalists, and they moved in to make arrests.

Apparently police had landrovers on standby in the nationalist New Lodge area nearby. You might think they'd be happy for the protection should any loyalist violence get out of hand but you'd be wrong.

According to the article: "Sinn Fein members were concerned that the presence of the police vehicles could attract young people wishing to attack them ..."

You see it's actually the landrovers fault for existing in the first place (and those big signs on the sides of them with 'Attack Me' in bold red letters). Obviously it has nothing to do with the inability of parents in the area to engender any kind of tolerance for the rule of law in their offspring. This is really taking the 'perpatrator turned victim' mentality a bit too far.

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Republican Sinn Fein, who organised the "counter-protest" (read riots) against the victims march in Dublin on Saturday had this to say:

"The scenes witnessed in Dublin today only serve to illustrate how out of touch the 26-county political establishment was with the depth of opposition to the routing of a loyalist march through Dublin.

The people of Dublin have shown their rejection of the ideology of sectarian hatred and bigotry represented by those who organised this march. The routing of such a march through Dublin was a completely irresponsible act with scant thought given to the consequences or the dangers it posed to people."

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Tony Blair and Peter Hain wants them back; Sinn Fein desperately want it back. The SDLP see it as a priority and even the Ulster Unionists are quite keen. The DUP want it back, although on their own terms. Yes I'm talking about the Assembly.

Yet it emerged today that thanks to the clowns that were in charge of this country between 1998 and 2002, Northern Irish taxpayers are facing the prospect of a large EU fine! It seems the Assembly and Executive took decisions on planning which they knew were in breach of EU planning law, and now Joe Q Taxpayer could be left holding the bill.

It seems we can't win. We have a choice between Direct Misrule, with a part-time secretary of state who sees his position as a stepping stone to greater things, and Local Misrule, with a bunch of amateurs out for their own gain, without the scantest regard for those mugs foolish enough to vote them into power.