It's been an especially violent and confrontational week but luckily today is St Patricks day, when we can forget about everything as we sip on a pint of Guinness and contemplate Ireland's long and famously violence free history. Q: What do you call a bulletproof irishman? A: Rick O'Shea Anyway, for now I'll stop, or should I say "backstop" because I suppose I should get back to the Brexit news.

The week saw Theresa May return to Westminster to have a second go at passing her Brexit agreement and the result was exactly the same, an irony seemingly lost on those wanting a second referendum, In the process, nothing was achieved although a few more MPs gave up any last vestiges of hope in May or Corbyn and Nick Boles actually quit his local constituency party. The lesson there is presumably that he thinks it's better to quit an organisation than to remain inside and reform it from within. I would say that's the definition of irony although surely the definition of irony is not knowing the difference between a definition & an example. Anyway, the next stop in Brexit now is when Theresa May goes to Brussels to ask for an extension to talks. If any one of those 27 countries says "no" then it will be a WTO rules exit in 2 week's time and those wishing to remain will for once be the ones putting the blame on the East Europeans or whoever it was that refused to kneel before Brussels' demands.

The other main story of the week was the shooting in New Zealand. One of the victims was overheard telling the assassin to "stop brother" to which the response was seemingly to point out the bit in the Koran where the Cain and Abel story takes place. There's probably a joke about the IEDs of March in there too but I think I'll just stop for now.

If we have to finish up on a lighthearted note, I did read a story about a prison officer who had been discovered to have had a relationship with an inmate and was sentenced by the judge to four years in jail. I'm not convinced that's going to be much of a deterrent.