On Saturday, there were serious clashes between nationalists and police in the Portadown area of Northern Ireland. 57 police were injured by a hail of petrol bombs, 'acid bombs' (according to the bbc) and missiles in the Garvaghy road, after protestants made their yearly provocative march into a nationalist area. Police fired 6 plastic bullets at the protesters.

Most years I can remember, any incidents this large were reported as the first story on the news across the uk and ireland. The most coverage that I saw on tv was channel 4 news giving it as a news in brief, with no footage. The bbc website carries a single page of coverage, with a picture of some policemen standing next to a van. Given the carnage so briefly described, this hardly compares to 'Oldham riots in pictures', a page on the same website giving a montage of the mess left behind.

So what's going on? Can the press only handle one riot a day? Or do I smell more media fiddling...

Interestingly, someone raised the point of the riots and the lack of coverage it received, on the radio. The presenter said that perhaps the press had just got bored of the NI situation, that more petrol bombs were nothing new. I could possibly have believed him, if it wasn't for the main story on the bbc news at the start of the election, declaring a huge terrorist threat to london and the uk from the 'real IRA'.

This was used as a reason to place the whole of london under armed guard from our friends at the metropolitan police. Are these 2 things all of a sudden completely disconnected?

If my worst suspicions are true, then perhaps they are...

townie