Dim star of the County Down

We've been rumbled! The DUP's eagle-eyed egghead, Jim Allister, has exposed the 'Republican Master Plan'.

Yes, Sinn Féin's 'Big Idea' has been revealed by the DUP's Prodigal Son and aspiring leader.

On Monday, the former PA to Papa Doc issued a statement blowing the whistle on the "Sinn Féin Strategy".

Within 48 hours of the St Andrews Summit, Jim screamed, Gerry Adams was telling republicans that they should judge the St Andrews proposals on whether "they can move them nearer to the Ireland they have struggled so long to achieve..."

The Paisleyite Sherlock Holmes also found out that Adams had said the current negotiations are another "phase of struggle".

Yes, the barrister from Crossgar has incontrovertible evidence that Sinn Féin is still working for Irish reunification.

And how did the eagle-eyed legal beagle uncover the Sinn Féin Master Plan?

Adams's speech - given in public in West Belfast and reported by the media - was sent to all 732 Members of the European Parliament, including the unionists, explaining the Sinn Féin position. Talk about loose talk!

And, of course, Sinn Féin's launch in Brussels of a document in black and white (and colour!) called 'EU Support for Irish Reunification', five days after St Andrews, further alerted the DUP MEP to the Sinn Féin plan for a united Ireland.

You can't pull the wool over Jim Allister's eyes.

Ulster generals

I am disappointed in the new BBC programme, Ulster Generals, fronted by the cigar-chomping A-Team figure of RIR Colonel Tim Collins.

Using computer graphics and dramatic re-enactments, the two-part programme (part one was shown last Monday) focuses on official military adventures under the Union flag in the service of the British crown (Montgomery, Alexander, Auchinleck, etc).

"For the first time," the BBC blurb burbles, "this series shows what really happened in the scorching North Africa sands during 1941 and 1942."

But what about what really happened in the freezing hills of the Six Counties during more recent years, when the DUP Home Guard generals - Paisley, Robinson, McCrea, Foster and Wee Sammy Wilson - were deploying their Third Force and Ulster Resistance armies?

Prison block voting

Prisoners in the 26 Counties will be able to vote for the first time in the next general election.

But there won't be any bloc voting by the cons in Mountjoy or Limerick, or by any of the 3,200 prisoners across the state, because they will all get postal votes for their home addresses rather than their temporary abode.

Rebel Star editor

The anti-republican editor of the Irish Daily Star, Ger Colleran, curiously chose a rebel ballad from his native Kerry amongst the tunes during his Desert Island Discs-style outing in Conversations with Eamon Dunphy on RTÉ Radio 1 last Saturday.

The conflict in the Six Counties, Colleran insisted, was "unrelated to the legality" of the IRA campaign from 1916 to the 1920s. Legality? Surely the Rising and the Tan War were both illegal acts of insurrection with no legal justification in the eyes of the state. Or maybe Pearse and Connolly applied for police permission to have the Rising and no one knows that except Ger Colleran.

U2 protest

Colleran's jaundiced view of the world also came out in his choice of Johnny Cash's version of the U2 number, One, in what he called "a little protest" at Bono's recent tax exile shenanigans.

The tax exile carry-on of the Star's supreme owner at the head of Independent News & Media, Bean Baron Sir Anthony O'Reilly, was diplomatically passed over without even a little protest.

Dirty Harry

Britain's Prince Harry has been unashamedly flashing his crown jewels to the chaps in his Household Cavalry regiment.

Apparently, he skids along the corridors of Wellington Barracks to shower wearing only a tiny towel, according to 'insiders'.

Britain's Daily Star newspaper quoted one shower room sightseer as saying:

"The boys think it's hilarious to see Harry walking up and down the corridor. He's very confident around the barracks."

Let's see if he's so cocky when he's posted to Afghanistan and the Taliban are trying to shoot him up the Khyber Pass.