The latest account of the life of Van Morrison reveals him to be a man who was viewed by colleagues as 'a total lunatic, an idiot and a weirdo' and once addressed an audience as 'pigs'. By Tom Galvin

The delegation going to meet the Minister for Health, whom one of them refers to as "the Mata Hari", gather on the train with all the anxiousness of a group of kids on an outing to Dublin. They count themselves on; four here, two joining them in Limerick and some driving. They check their statistics, adding the latest.

Recent events – or non-events – in the political scene have served once again to emphasise the poverty of politics in modern Ireland. Very rarely is any matter of genuine political principle or policy choice an occasion of conflict or controversy: that is reserved for personalised in-fighting and career manoeuvring.

A campaign to combat plantation-style forestry in Ireland has been launched by the Woodland League, an organisation that aims to restore the relationship between communities and their native woodlands.

At some point in every election campaign every candidate forms a view that they are going to win. This syndrome, which is known as candidatitis, is capable of moving even the most rational aspirant into a state of extreme self-belief. It strikes without warning, is no respecter of gender, and can infect the lowly, municipal hopeful as well as lofty presidential wannabe.

Have you ever noticed how, if you mention anything to do with gender balance, the first reply you get is "but we have a woman on the committee/board/management etc"? I like to think of that response as the recognition that one, solitary, lone, token woman is the equivalent of the dozen men who have permanent residence on the committee/board/management etc. In allowing myself to believe that, it helps to suppress the overwhelming desire it provokes in me to deck the eejit who just said something that dumb.

An Irish journalist's reports from the Crimea changed the newspaper industry and British politics. 150 years later, Conor Brady remembers William Howard Russell

Conor McCarthy, a founding member of the Irish Palestianian Solidarity Campaign, finds a new book on Irish-Palestinian relations by Rory Miller's 'important at the documentary level, but flawed and even grossly biased at the interpretative level'

This particular one was introduced in 1752. It is huge and beautiful all year round for differing reasons. It is the first of all the maples to flower, which it does obligingly every March with hanging clusters of long-stalked, pale yellow flowers suspended beneath the opening bright green leaves, which later turn yellow to a pale orange, translucent in the autumn sunlight. This particular specimen is majestic against the winter skies.

Essential advice from Póilín on Tribunals and terriers