Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3

Good news, on two fronts. One is the election of Ireland's first black mayor, in Portlaoise. Rotimi Adebari, a Nigerian native who arrived in Ireland seven years ago is set to don the town's chain of office for the next year. You'd need to be very naïve to believe that this development is emblematic of total racial harmony in the country but it is likely to go some way to furthering it.

Another, more trivial piece of news is the launch of BBC's iPlayer, which will allow web users to catch up on BBC programmes from the previous seven days that they have missed, including free downloads that can be viewed for thirty days before they get wiped. Mac users will have to wait until autumn to use it but I'm not going to grumble too much about that. Hopefully there will be no restriction on people outside of Britain streaming or downloading. Hopefully this will be the end of waiting months or even years to catch up on the likes of The Office, Extras and The Thick of It.