| After a pretty miserable latter half of August, perhaps the Gods are playing games - today is set to be stunning across Northern Ireland.
As I write this before midday it is not yet as sunny as has been forecast. Many of the Royal Black Last Saturday parades are getting under way. I hope it isn't uncomfortably hot! We will have a picture supplement in Monday's paper.
As a boy I remember being impressed by Larne's football club viewing stand as we drove to the boat. It was fairly big by Irish League standards. Now they are the first such club to reach the group stages in a European club competition. They are owned by one of a wealthy pair of brothers who founded the Purple Bricks online estate agency.
When I lived in Hackney in the 1990s my flat mate went to a massive concert by Oasis in, I think, Knebworth. Now there is colossal interest in their reforming. Both Dublin concerts were immediately sold out, almost 200,000 tickets, a massive number on an island with a small population. Our news editor Damian Wilson writes here about his attempt to get seats.
Here are two important opinion pieces. Prof Liam Kennedy queries some of the uncritical coverage of Nell McCafferty's legacy, saying she was a pioneering journalist but flawed advocate of social justice. And Owen Polley says that he can't see a museum at the Maze that is other than a shrine to IRA terror and he would prefer the buildings to be ground into the dirt. My column looks why unionists often seem to support northern Cyprus. Enjoy your reading and your sunny Saturday, Ben | 