• Cooke's voyage

  Barrie Cooke's watery paintings are quite at home in the Galway Arts Centre, between the River Corrib and the canal that feeds noisily back into it, with the expanse of the bay opening out just down the road. Quite at home as well, if less happily, in that the first works you encounter in the gallery are some of his pollution pictures, for Galway has its share of problems in that regard. p
  

• Clappy happy people

  Whoever came up with the derogatory term "clappy-happy music" obviously never heard qawwali. With just two instruments, a handful of voices and a complex undercurrent of synchronised hand-clapping, a qawwali group can produce some of the most jubilant sounds you're ever likely to hear. An infectiously insistent rhythm, exuberant vocals, steady, mantra-like chant patterns whose kaleidoscopic effect is, every so often, exploded by an inspired whirl of spontaneous improvisation - small wonder that when qawwali was introduced to the burgeoning world music scene by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in the mid-1980s, it proved hugely popular with western audiences, turning the Pakistani singer into a household name among the cappucino-drinking classes. p
  

• Poll reform could mean smaller, and better

  Noel Dempsey is flying another kite on the electoral system. He is in good company. Well-known Fianna Fail colleagues as well as Fine Gael luminaries such as Garret FitzGerald, have all backed the heave against the Single Transferable Vote (STV). p
  

• Leaping to Blair's law now might be a risk too

  Over recent weeks a concerted attempt has been made to short-circuit the political process which so many people hope will soon lead to peace and democracy. From painful experience I know there are no short cuts to peace. p
  

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