Hi °C | Lo °C 
She may have caused ructions up at Stormont. But Margaret Ritchie's decision to withhold £1.2m of taxpayers' money from the UDA was right. Damned right.
Elected representatives may be miffed at her. But out here in the real world the most common reaction to Ms Ritchie's mid-week snap of the purse strings was: "Good on ye."
Are the DUP aware of this? Their objections to the minister's statement may have been on a point of legality.
But that's not how it's being seen by the electorate.
The way most people see it is that the DUP actually want the UDA to get money from the public purse.
I overheard one of the Paisley party's long-term supporters comment this week: "DUP - apparently it's short for duplicitous."
This from an angry man - a man whose family had been attacked by loyalist terrorists.
It is an understatement to say that the DUP stance has not gone down well with unionist voters who regard all paramilitaries as scum and who are utterly baffled as to why money that is desperately needed in deprived loyalist communities has to be channelled in via the UDA.
There is a general acceptance that the money should be made available where it is needed. (And there is considerable evidence that the £1.2m is a pittance compared to what is required.)
But the implication that the Assembly is somehow at a loss as to how the funding should be channelled into these areas is offensive.
Is the Assembly honestly trying to suggest it believes the UDA is the only vehicle to deliver aid to those who genuinely need it?
There are many groups, including the churches, already striving to make a difference in deprived loyalist areas. And for the record, those areas do not begin and end in Belfast.
It should surely not be beyond the ability of the Executive, aided by public representatives from the areas in question, to set up a body which would see the cash directed to where it is needed most.
But unfortunately the farce of providing back-handers to paramilitary outfits as a sop for 'decommissioning' has precedence.
The Government has considerable previous form in bribing a certain Mr P O'Neill to come on board the process.
But that wasn't right then. And this isn't right now.
And it should be stressed that while forwarding public funding to murderous paramilitary organisations in return for their arms is vile enough, how much worse if the minister was to hand over money in return for zilch.
At all turns we're told we're now in 'the new Northern Ireland'.
But it's one, it seems, where the flaky morality of the old one still holds sway.
Margaret Ritchie said this week that she was standing up for democracy.
That might seem like an antiquated aspiration up at Stormont. But at street level it is exactly what people from both sides of the community are crying out for their public representatives to defend.
Cynic that I am, I suspect that the combined powers of the DUP, Sinn Fein, the NIO and, God help us, Her Majesty's Government, may yet get the minister in the long grass.
There's a template for the process and the defence of democracy does not fit neatly into it.
But this week Margaret Ritchie spoke up for many more people than the SDLP voters of South Down when she stuck to her guns over her funding deadline.
A politician who delivers?
Not what the extortionist paramilitaries want. Not what our politicians want.
But what the people want.
Auntie may have lost the run of herself
It's easy to slag off the BBC. When people hear that 100 staff may go in Northern Ireland alone, their thoughts tend to turn to the likes of Jonathan Ross - salary, a reputed £6m a year.
No wonder that that gets the punters' backs up.
No wonder people have so very little sympathy.
Wossy's salary could more than pay for that 100 staff per annum - with plenty to spare.
The big question is whether he is, in the words of the cosmetics ad, worth it?
To a hard-working member of staff doing a sound job much further down the food chain, that eye-watering salary must seem hard to justify.
For the Beeb as a whole, trying to signal to the long suffering licence payers that it takes good care of the pennies, it will be so much harder to defend.
And it doesn't stop with one chat show host.
Terry Wogan, we're told, gets a reputed £800,000 per annum. Chris Evans over half a mill.
It goes on and on ?
As Cilla might have said, it's a lorra, lorra cash.
But value for money?
Viewers want a fair return for their licence fee.
The glittering sums paid to BBC stars is often more dazzling than the on-screen return.
It does not engender a sense of solidarity with the BBC as a whole.
In twee television terms the Beeb is affectionately known as Auntie.
In the real world people are increasingly thinking that the Auntie has lost the run of herself.
Angelina curvy? I don't think so
A new survey (yet another one) finds that less than 2% of women are happy with their bodies. In a poll of bodies they'd most like to have, Kelly Brook, who is genuinely curvy, comes first and Angelina Jolie, who is described as curvy, comes second.
The thing is that Ms Jolie is anything but curvy.
She is constantly in the tabloids and glossy mags these days on account of her skeletal form, her scary bony knees and stories about how the stress of her lifestyle is reportedly taking its toll on her weight.
If Angelina Jolie is curvy, in other words, it's thinly disguised ?
Is Kate in the Army now?
Kitted out in camouflage gear and toting what looks like an AK 47, Kate Middleton, girlfriend of Prince William, has been snapped shooting the wildlife in the royals' Balmoral estate.
We're told this is an everyday country sport.
But Kate looks like she's ready to be parachuted into Basra.
Maybe they're training her as a front line replacement for Harry. After all it would save her having to deal with all those nasty paparazzi.
And it would leave her expensively trained 'soldier' boyfriend and his officer brother free to continue their own military roles - nightly patrolling the VIP enclosures of the London hostelries.
Flying away never easier
As a report in this paper this week reveals, you can now fly directly - and often cheaply - from Northern Ireland to over 50 destinations in as many as 36 different countries.
Irony of ironies.
Life in Northern Ireland has never been better.
Yet it's never been easier for any of us to actually get out of the place.
