Deja Vu

I am old enough to remember the old ways and days. The 'Troubles' as only the Irish can euphemistic call them, were the terrible period of 30 or so years from the 1960s in which over 3,600 people lost their lives both in Northern Ireland and on mainland Britain. It was an awful period of history for which no side can feel proud.

Mercifully, this came to an end. Through the germ on an idea from John Major and seen through to conclusion under Tony Blair with the help of the USA, it seemed we all finally learned that fighting force with force was never, ever going to solve the problem. For every IRA volunteer who was arrested or killed, there were several others waiting to take their place - the prospect of martyrdom is always a glorious motivator for such people and their Cause.

What we suddenly got to grips with was the concept that if you can take way the reason to fight, then the fighting eventually stops. This took a lot of courage by a lot of people but it ultimately resulted in Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, and Rev. Ian Paisley, ultra hard Loyalist, to share a stand, laughing and joking as if they had been pals all their lives.

At the height of the Troubles such as sight would have been no more likely than putting men on Mars.

New Beginnings

It is a shock, then, after more than 10 years of peace, that the killings have started again. Part of the Good Friday deal was complete disarmament by the terrorists or putting their arms beyond use. In the complex world that is terrorism, the consent was given but never fully achieved and more importantly, not every splintered faction of the terrorists were fully bought in. But it was enough to obtain a peace. It is part of the modus operandi of such people that they sleep with their guns close at hand in case things are not going the way they want - to some extent this is the risk of dealing with such people as compromise is so hard for them to stomach.

The likes of McGuinness and Gerry Adams, part of the Sinn Fein team that brokered the peace, have condemned the recent killings and have said 'those dark days are behind us'. I applaud that although they really seem to think that the prospect of the Army occupying Northern Ireland, more checkpoints and restrictions on people are the unfriendly alternatives - they were very careful not to say that the Cause was no more.

They also, despite being serving Members of Parliament, have never taken their seats in the House of Commons - old Causes die very hard even for Peacemakers.

Peace Is The Victory

In all those terrible years, the common factor that fuelled the violence was that all sides were convinced that for every atrocity, a more violent response was the only answer. The belief was that guns, bullets and bombs was the only language that anybody spoke and understood. In such a strategy, there can never be a winner, as each last bullet must be followed by another to prove the point. Only until every last family ever touched by the Troubles was eliminated could there be no others willing to take up the fight, would be the ultimate and stupid logic.

So much of what we saw was abetted by the flow of funds through Noraid in the USA as Irish Americans seemed to think it was fashionable and wise to support the people of their roots in their oppression and history gave them a sound case to do so. The expanse of the Atlantic allowed them to keep the horror that is terrorism and its outcomes at arms length and out of sight.

That changed forever when terrorism came to the USA in the most devastating way on 9/11 2001. At first hand, the Firefighters, who had held an annual lunch which Gerry Adams always attended to keep the money flowing, were faced with the evil and total disregard for life that is terrorism.

I hope one thing - that in this first show of violence in the name of the Cause for over 10 years, that all sides show the defiance that enabled Peace to be the one Victor in Northern Ireland, and to expunge these evil people from society by everyone turning their backs on them and denying them their Cause.

Peace is the only thing that is ever worth fighting for.

When Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction

Like many people I watch films and read books and I often scoff at the outrageous story lines or antics of the central characters. Then things happen in the 'real' world which make such fantasies out of touch with what really happens.

Fiction Sometimes Does Not Cut It

I remember reading an old Tom Clancy novel when some disgruntled guy flies a passenger plane into the Senate building and thinking, 'nice story but load of tosh. It could never happen'.

Some years later I received an urgent call from a colleague in the New York area telling me a small plane had flown into the World Trade Center and to turn on my TV. I watched in dumb horror as the events of 9/11 unravelled and found out the enormity of reality in the world of terrorism. On that day nearly 3,000 people died and planes were flown into both towers of the WTC and even the Pentagon. You could not make it up.

This weekend, after watching Clancy's 'Patriot Games' on TV I was reminded of our violent heritage in Britain and thanked God we had seen the last of it. Then the chilling news appeared that two soldiers had been brutally murdered in Northern Ireland, the first such casualties since 1997 and a shiver went down my spine as it appears 'The Real IRA' has been apportioned the blame. The old reality of Irish 'Troubles' flashed back to haunt us and we hope that is just that.

On Lighter Matters

I watched Star Trek when I was young and marvelled at the crew's ability to reach light speeds and transport their bodies from one place to another. Quantum physics gives us some hope that that both can be a reality, and that it even could be possible to travel back in time. But there are so many issues attached to both that it would be easy to believe that neither could ever happen. Then in some laboratory somewhere, we find that scientists have succeeded in sending tiny particles short distances and reforming. Maybe, 'Beam me up Scottie' is not such a daft idea after all.

Yesterday I read something that would be a great hope to all beer-swilling men, that fart molecules could be the next Viagra. The stink of flatulence and specifically hydrogen sulphide can cause erections in rats. The penis is packed with spongy tissue that fills with blood to cause an erection. Nitric oxide causes the walls of arteries supplying the penis to relax to allow this to happen and Viagra works by blocking the enzyme which destroys nitric oxide. It has now been found that hydrogen sulphide does the same thing too.

Romance may never be the same again. 'Darling I'm home and I have a little surprise for you - 6 pints of lager and a curry, baby.'

How Can You See A Black Hole?

Two scientists at Nottingham University came up with a way to actually see what a black hole may look like. By suspending droplets of water in a diamagnetic field and then spinning them, they were able to see who the droplet changes shape remarkably. The triangular shape they saw in an instant advanced fluid dynamics but they also found the shapes simulated cosmological events like black holes, which are thought to have a water like membrane at the event horizon, and even subatomic levels.

Beats switching on the LHC and experiencing a real one.

This week also, it appears that the grave of the first 'vampire' has been discovered in Colorado. The skeleton dates back since before the famous Dracula book by Bram Stoker and was found with a stake driven through the unfortunate person's mouth. Since the revelation there have been many more cases brought to light suggesting the practice of killing 'vampires' was quite widespread around the 1750s onward. Watch out, Dark Lord Mandelson.

Just today we hear that scientists have come up with a way of putting 'scaffolding' into voids in the brain caused by stroke damage - again mimicking the action of Dr. 'Bones' McCoy's Thingie which he passed over wounds and heads to instantly heal them.

Acupuncture is something I have always been sceptical about but when I recently had a very bad stomach virus that made me feel sick all the time, my neighbour stuck a few pins into my wrists and I can actually say the treatment alleviated the symptoms for several hours. I felt bad again the next day but there was no doubt I got an instant 'hit' from acupuncture - and I have no idea why.

Sometimes fact is far stranger than fiction.