...a trip to Mount Argus.

Apparently Charles (sadly not Charles J.) used his saintly magic to cure "perforated, gangrenous appendicitis with generalized peritonitis that was multi-organically compromising and included extenuating and prolonged agony."

I can't find out whether the miraculous cure took place in the 19^th Century, in which case I'd hazard a kidney-stone, or in the last number of years, in which case my guess might get me sued (and what a fun case that would be). But there you have it. At least people will be vaguely social democratic and polite where I'm going.

Update: The crucial cure apparently took place in 1999. Lots of witnesses, so the conspiracy to defraud theory is probably not wise. Still, let's just say that I'll take a shrug of the shoulders and "it's just one of those strange things" over an imaginary friend theory any day.

I'm in New England now. Boston is, um, somewhat cooler than Dallas, much to everyone's shock and surprise. I'm hanging around with Mel and we're both heading for a little work in New Hampshire in a little while.

Sarah Carey's latest Sunday Tribune column is well worth the read. I'm not particularly surprised at the line the High Court took - it seems like a fairly simple reading of the Constitution. But it does make a total nonsense of the equality indirectly granted to the unborn (by virtue of the clause on the 'equal rights of the mother'). That was always going to be nonsense but the D case simply casts the profound mess that it is into stark relief.

At the same time, I've more sympathy with politicians who are avoiding the issue. Putting this foolishness in the Constitution was divisive enough. Imagine the bitterness that would ensue from trying to remove it.

As is so often the case in politics, and much though politicians hate to say it, recognising the dimensions of a problem is not the same as formulating a solution. With this one, my guess is that we're stuck fast.

Haruki Murakami's book of short stories, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman is making for fascinating reading. Oddly enough, there is strong cinematic potential to the stories despite the fact that a lot is left unspoken.

In the introduction to the book, Murakami compares writing novels to planting a forest, but writing short stories to planting a garden. He says that though writing a short story is a relatively quick process, revisions can be endless. This is echoed by the writer Claire Keegan in the Irish Times Saturday Weekend supplement this week, where she says that she could re-draft a single short story 30 times. Does this mean that the short story writing process is harder than the novel? if so, should we rank the quality of a short story higher than a novel? 

Greetings from Texas. I got in at all hours last night on the first part of a whistlestop tour of the US. Off to Boston over the weekend and then to Washington DC.

As always, the people here are wonderful and friendly. I only hope I don't bewilder them when I deliver a short paper tomorrow on the Parades Commission (being rewritten now in the light of this week's events).

Just one thing: reading Martin McGuinness's speech in yesterday's Irish Times, I noticed that the transcript, as is also the case on the BBC, has him beginning "I am proud to stand here today as an Irish republican who believes absolutely in a united Ireland."

But listen to the speech (you can listen to all the speeches here). What McGuinness actually said was that he "believes in the unity of Ireland." Which is a very different thing, symptomatic of Sinn Féin's slight shift from a united Ireland policy to an all-Ireland policy.

And it's very welcome. Nothing like the recognition that politics is the art of the possible to actually develop a politics that works.