| It is a partly sunny, partly cloudy spring day, and much of this week is set to be pleasant in this way, as the days get ever brighter. On Monday we will publish a long tribute by the outstanding writer and thinktank leader Dean Godson on Blair Wallace, that hugely respected former RUC deputy chief constable. As Dean writes, "everyone can still name leading republicans like Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Bobby Sands. But who in Great Britain can name a single security force hero of the Troubles?" I was among the mourners at Mr Wallace's funeral service yesterday, which we report here. Paul McElhinney writes here about the Ulster placenames in America showing the early influence of the Scots Irish. I love the picture in the story showing a sign I have driven past that notifies an exit for both Derry and Londonderry, nearby each other in New Hampshire! Esmond Birnie reminds us that isolationism is not new in America, which makes me think both how time moves with regard to identity. For example, the pro German rally in 1939 in New York, when Nazism was close to starting war, was a mere 50 years after those batches of Germans who emigrated America in the late 1800s. And my own memories of visiting America the late 1970s, when I was a boy, and being surprised at hearing people describe themselves as Irish American when their ancestors had come in 1800s. This is something that has long since ceased to surprise me - some of them had relatives who had arrived a mere 80 years previously. Gavin Robinson says that in these difficult times we are lucky to be in the UK. Meanwhile, the threadbare nature of Stormont's Programme for Government is because they can only really agree on spending more - a profligacy that I predict won't survive Europe's new need to spend more on defence. Here is a report about a woman who has been jailed for killing a cyclist, seconds after she actually typed out a message on her phone. And here is a former journalist Donna Deeney, who was badly injured while with her granddaughter by an elderly driver, talking about something I have written about before - the need to check that very old drivers are still capable of driving. This story is about the sky high rental prices on the north coast during the coming Open week, and this is about Translink being asked to justify breaching planning permission for its new station. Enjoy your reading and your Satruday,
Ben | 
