overlap

I wanted to mention this before I forget. I'm entirely familiar with the N/S divide in the country I come from, and I've got a pretty good idea how that concept sits in the country where I live. So I suppose it should not really have been a surprise, but all the same I wasn't quite expecting what I saw either. Last week I took a bus from Dublin to Belfast, and one going the other way the following day. I'm on record as saying I don't have a lot of time for the pursuit of nationhood, and I find it difficult to accept that a lot of the stuff the human race has done as one nation to another has been mutually beneficial in equal measure, so my reaction would be rather predictable. Seeing nothing to specifically mark the border, the first point I remembered that there was a border was seeing a number of money changed here signs, and the speed limit signs changing between kilometres and miles per hour. And the clusters of flags on lamp posts, and the political slogans and notices at the side of the road. And in a curious quirk of timing, the fact I was able to make that journey without a more intrusive border presence has plenty to do with Mo Mowlam, whose work in banging heads together and making people compromise should not be forgotten. Cheers Mo!