This is the great thing about Northern Ireland. I walk down the street and people stop me and say things like 'I know you. You're that wee golfer aren't you?' I say 'Yeah that's me.' They say 'Keep it up wee man.' It's very funny and that's why I want to stay here as long as possible.

At each of these northern posts there were interesting experiences in store for me as one who had read all the books of northern travel and dreamed for half a lifetime of the north and that was - almost daily meeting with famous men.

My culture-deprived aspirational mother dragged me once a month from our northern suburb - where the word art never came up - to the Art Institute of Chicago. I hated it.

That feeds anger and I mean when we went and at last thank heavens got towards peace in Northern Ireland we went for justice within Northern Ireland as well as using security well as well as a political settlement but surely that is the lesson.