What a sad, sad week it has been. All those poor people killed or maimed by the monsters of Omagh. All those funerals. All those moving words of grief spoken by ordinary souls.

All those hypocritical mouthings by politicians whose belief that they had successfully appeased the men and women of terror was shown up for what many of us feared it to be - a terrible case of vain-glorious self-delusion.

The proof of their folly lies in the dead men, women and children (including those unborn) of a small, peace-loving town which was chosen to feel the full force of unrestrained evil.

Those who rejoiced when the Good Friday peace accord was reached were a little presumptuous. It was not the end. Nor was it even the true beginning of the end, because too many of those responsible for drawing up the deal and signing it were too willing to believe that they were able to succeed where so many others had failed.

Because of their desire not to let anything get in the way of their place in history, they made too many concessions. They decided to overlook the fact that the IRA refused to decommission its armoury of weapons. They agreed to the release of murderers with no guarantees that the sickness of mind which had attracted them to terrorism in the first place would not draw them back to it. They relaxed the anti-terrorism laws.

Now their kindness and trust has been repaid with the lives and the limbs of innocents slaughtered by those who read a message of weakness into this rush to act as if all had suddenly come right in Ireland after centuries of hatred.

When will the lesson ever be learned? You cannot negotiate with evil, or compromise with it, or appease it. You have to cage it or, preferably, destroy it.

There should be no further release of any terrorists. That would not only keep potentially dangerous people where they can do no harm. It would also show those who are currently waging war against civilisation via indiscriminate bombings that they can expect the harshest of treatment.

As things stand, they must feel they have very little to fear.

Even if they are caught, and convicted, someone will quickly start a campaign to have them freed on the grounds of a miscarriage of justice. Or they will be released in an amnesty linked to some other, future, doomed-to-failure peace initiative.

In fact, it's time for the death sentence to be restored for terrorist murder.

The only fool-proof answer to the sort of evil we saw last week at Omagh is to do away with the people in which it lives and thrives.

Don't blame Trevor for hiding the truth

What are we to make of the shock-horror revelations about Trevor Howard, the actor who played so many wartime heroes? Was he really a terrible phoney, claiming war honours he neither had nor deserved, as newly-released official files seem to show?

He became something of a legend during the war years. He was reported to have been awarded the Military Cross for bravery after spending 11 hours clinging to the wreckage of a glider off Sicily. Those credentials were attributed to him in several wartime newspaper features.

Yet the star of Cockleshell Heroes and The Battle of Britain had apparently never seen action, never won any medals, and had been invalided out of the Army in 1943 because of his "psychopathic personality".

Trevor Howard was interviewed by the police about these claims, which he insisted had not originated from him. He claimed the Press must have mistaken him for another Howard serving in the same airborne division who did win the MC.

In a way, you can't blame him for failing to try too hard to squash that false biographical detail. Once written and published, it will have gone into the cuttings libraries of the nation's newspapers and have been accepted as fact, to surface again from time to time.

It would hardly have helped his image as a silver-screen hero if he'd written to every newspaper to say: "Please amend your files. I'm not the brave person I'm cracked up to be. In fact, I was thrown out of the Army because I'm dangerously disturbed."

It's a let-down to learn the true facts of Howard's war service. And the misrepresentation is an affront to all those people who won well-deserved medals for genuine acts of courage. But it's perhaps forgivable, given the circumstances.

Much Ado About Nothing

Now that we've passed the 500-day mark in the countdown to the Millennium, I really do wish I could get excited about it all. Sadly, though, I can't kid myself that reaching January 1 of the year 2000AD will be of any significance.

I could understand the fuss if that was going to be the day on which everything started to come right with the world. But the chances of the entire human race making a New Millennium Resolution to be kind, caring, peace-loving and unselfish for ever more, and sticking to it, are somewhat remote judging by past form.

The Millennium is a man-made distraction to take our minds off the world's woes when really we should be concentrating even harder on trying to put them right.

I find that a cause for sadness rather than celebration.

An unlucky break for those non-smokers

The survey showing that non-smoking workers resent their smoking colleagues' cigarette breaks only adds to the problems companies face.

If they slap a total ban on smoking, and on smoking breaks, they'll end up with a lot of twitchy smokers on their payroll who aren't able to do their job to the best of their ability because they're suffering from nicotine starvation (and I know how distracting that can feel, because I smoked for years).

On the other hand, if they accept that smokers need to smoke from time to time, be it outside the back door or in a specially set-aside room, they also have to accept that while they're away from their work benches or desks or whatever, somebody is having to cover for them.

Small wonder the non-smokers feel a bit fed up, if it usually turns out to be them providing the cover - and to add insult to injury, they miss out on the breaks, too.

Several solutions spring to mind. Smokers could be expected to get other smokers to answer their telephones or mind their machines while they're away from the work stations. And smokers could work longer days, to take account of their breaks.

Alternatively, to even things out, non-smokers could be allocated occasional fresh-air breaks during which they can stand outside the back door (well away from the smokers) breathing deeply or can huddle together in a smoke-free air-conditioned room.

Isn't modern life complicated?

Pat on the back for our improving city

Those of us who are in Bradford every day tend not to notice changes in the city centre as much as occasional visitors do.

Relatives from Canada were in town this week. The wife was born and bred in Bradford and visits regularly. The husband is Danish and comes here less often. On this trip they were accompanied by his brother and sister-in-law from Denmark, who had never been here before.

What did they think of the place when they came to have a look round it on Monday morning? On the down side, they were all disappointed at the number of empty shops.

But the regular and occasional visitors thought the city centre was looking much improved - in particular the former Wool Exchange - and the couple from Denmark were pleasantly surprised at how clean Bradford was.

All of which must offer some encouragement to those responsible. Their efforts are paying off, it seems.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.