Exclusive pic from Charlie Byrd's latest river epic:

I paid a visit to the new Ballymun a couple of weeks ago and on first impressions it’s a one million per cent improvement on what was there before. Lots of good work has been done in an effort to create a proper town centre. There are fine new public and commercial buildings and some of the housing schemes are very nicely designed.

I wrote a piece in the Tribune a week or two ago criticising the media for failing to tackle the local authority mess in general and planning matters in particular in any meaningful way (click on the link at the bottom of this section).

Last time I told you about a situation developing in Carrick on Suir, County Tipp, where the Council is at odds with a huge chunk of the local community about how the town is being planned.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the New York Times last week to see their court sketch artist had captured an unreported moment at the Mahon Tribunal where Celia Larkin poured a jug of water over the Teesh’s former secretary for spoiling the party as a heavily made up Bertie looked on in disinterest. Turns out, the sketch is of that other in many ways similar court room scene played out last week between Heather Mills, Paul McCartney and Fiona Shackleton.