You can't smoke in any public place in Northern Ireland, correct? Well that's the case until next week when the Assembly will consider a Health Bill which contains an unusual exemption to the ban. This will apparently allow actors to take a drag when on stage if smoking is essential to the artistic integrity of their performance.
Any hacks hanging out in the Stormont Press Bar who insist they need nicotine to get over writer's block are unlikely to be covered by the artistic integrity argument.
The Executive's honeymoon period is showing a few signs of cracking, what with Ian Jr's remarks over gays, Peter admonishing his colleagues over making rash spending promises and Sinn Fein arguing that the First Minister didn't set a good example by heading into a different lobby from the Deputy First Minister in a vote on the Single Equality Act.
At least the Office of First and Deputy First Minister will present a united front on June 11th when the top two have to answer their first questions from MLAs.
Well, not quite. Ian Paisley will take all the questions on June 11th. Then Martin McGuinness will go it alone the next time around. This is a change from the old question time format when David Trimble and his consorts used to sit side by side and take it question and question about.
So if you are an MLA wanting to ascertain the view of the OFMDFM on, say, gays, you might care to find out who is answering the questions on a given date. Oh, I forgot, when wearing their official hats all the ministers think the same about these issues.
The Education Secretary Alan Johnson is in town for a dinner celebrating the centenary of Labour's first conference in Belfast. He told my colleague Gareth Gordon that it won't be too long before Labour is fielding candidates in elections here. He said the process of the party organising here is irreversible. Alan Johnson has always been much keener on Labour spreading its wings in Northern Ireland than many of his party colleagues, including Peter Hain who is distinctly cool on the idea. Last night Newsnight held an utterly unscientific viewer vote on its debate between Johnson, Hain and the other Deputy Leadership contenders. John Cruddas won, Alan Johnson came third but our Secretary of State brought up the rear in 6th place. Ladbrokes currently have Mr Johnson as favourite on 2/1 and Mr Hain as the outsider on 12/1. Maybe the small core of NI Labour activists have more influence than I had realised.
Handbags at Dawn on the Culture Committee today when the Vice Chair Ulster Unionist David McNarry walked out in protest at the way the Chair, Sinn Fein's Barry McElduff was handling his demand for an inquiry into the current consultation on an Irish language bill. The deputy Chair accused the Chair of making things up as he went along. The Chair said the Deputy Chair was playing politics and didn't like "democracy in action". Afterwards both politicians said they wanted a word with the other. It's not clear at this stage if one word will be in Irish and the other in Ulster Scots.
Bizarrely, the losers in this row are the Arts Council - the Culture Committee voted down Mr McNarry's demand for an Irish language inquiry but are moving on post haste to an inquiry into funding for the Arts.
I'm 
