Today was the Open Day at Erne Integrated College, where Rory (our middle son, 14) goes now, and Aidan (10) will start in September (God willing, as they say over here, and if He isn’t, then I don’t know what we’ll do).

It’s a fantastic school, with wonderful teachers and laid-back yet enthusiastic students. In any rational world they’d be turning away potential pupils in their droves (how many are there in a drove, by the way?).

Here, however, with the old tribal stuff, although the place was packed, I suspect that most were looking for an insurance place, a possible second choice in case their son or daughter misses the grammar school target. And not just any grammar school, of course, but almost invariably the one that the appropriate parent attended. This aspect of Northern Ireland’s culture is particularly weird to us English, who generally have no interest in where our parents went to school, and no desire whatsoever to inflict the same on our children. But here it’s a big thing. The other day I met a woman from Belfast whose husband was originally from Derry and hankered to go back there purely so that his son could attend his old school. It’s even written into the admissions policy of every school (except the integrated ones which are too new for it to apply), that having a parent who attended the school is one of the criteria for being accepted.

I’d thought initially, coming here and being horrified by the continued sectarian divide, that the fault line lay with religion and that the separate schools were a symptom of that. (Mixed metaphor, sorry.) I’m starting to think, though, that with the decline in religious observance (and presumably of religious belief as well) schools have taken the place of faith in defining identity, so that a boy does not go to St Michael’s (the Catholic grammar school) because he is Catholic, but is Catholic because he went to St Michael’s.

All the same, the integrated schools are thriving and growing, oversubscribed in many areas and even where they aren’t at age eleven, as here, attracting many transfers later on, among the 13+ age-group, some of whom are allowed to make up their own minds. And there are good signs that the next generation may be more open-minded than the last, and that our children’s contemporaries will have shaken off the desolate desire to define themselves by, and re-enact through their children, their rather sad and segregated schooldays.

Went to Belfast yesterday with Aidan, to auditions for “Oliver” (A, not me, obviously). We had quite a jolly time, especially once I’d got over the help-I’ve-lost-my-iPod panic and discovered that the bus fares were on special offer. We queued for a couple of hours, but inside the Europa Hotel, rather than out in the bleak Belfast wind, and Aidan had a half hour session with the BBC people before being dismissed, along with three-quarters of the others. It’s one of these television things, like the Sound of Music and Joseph ones, with auditions around the country and then a group brought to London for the televised eliminations. It would have been a boost for A to have got further, but I don’t think any of us would really enjoy the prospect of the TV bit – his living in London with a BBC chaperone for three months subject to the facetious comments of Graham Norton and the scrutiny of Andrew Lloyd-Webber (or “The Lord” as they seem to call him). It was a slightly disturbingly monoethnic gathering – there doesn’t seem any more reason for Oliver to have a broad Ulster accent than to be Indian or Chinese – but I don’t suppose that was the fault of the BBC. Anyway, it all worked out okay, with miraculously good timing on the part of the buses, the chance of a quick dash round the Oxfam & War on Want shops, and the opportunity to ruminate about how incredible it is that a child of mine (anyone, particularly Woodseaves, who knew me at school will remember the excruciating noises that came from my larynx during assembly) could ever even contemplate a singing audition. And we got back in time for Wetherspoon’s curry night.

Do you remember the film (not a great box-office success) Waterworld, where the first three hours, or so it feels, consists of Kevin Costner squelching his way through a landscape consisting entirely of lakes and mud? That’s pretty much what today has been like. I’ve got through three pairs of saturated shoes and my feet don’t feel like feet anymore, more like lumps of uncooked mince and flour, waiting to find out whether they are destined to be burgers or meatballs. If I still had a computer on my bike, it would be measuring my speed in knots. Ship ahoy!

Up to now I haven’t really done anything about selling books on Amazon, which is probably a bit bizarre, since internet bookselling is the main thing that I do now. So I’ve taken the plunge now, and spent most of this weekend uploading stuff there, which is why I haven’t got anything much to write about.

On the positive side, I haven’t got cross today, as I usually do on Sundays, though that’s generally a result of reading a Sunday paper. We don’t usually get a paper at all during the week, not even the local ones (despite being so tiny, Enniskillen of course has to have two local papers, the Fermanagh Something, which has the G.A.A. (Gaelic) sports and the Catholic school plays and the Impartial (sic) Reporter.

Where was I? Oh yes, papers. For a while we’ve been getting one on Saturday and Sunday, but have decided to give up the latter and replace it with Private Eye. So there will only be the Saturday Guardian to raise my blood pressure, which it doesn’t usually, too badly, as long as I don’t get started on the Living with Teenagers column…

We used to have a hymn at school with the lines “Lone and dreary, faint and weary…” Somehow the lines keep going through my head, not when I’m really miserable, just physically tired and cold, but happy. I cycled back from our business unit two and half hours ago now, and still haven’t completely defrosted. (Which, thinking about it, is probably why I’m doing the same to the fridge at the moment). Not sure which of us will reach room temperature first. I got another puncture yesterday, albeit v. slow, so am back to the old Raleigh with the knobblier tyres until spring has sprung…

Is that one of the things that go in the tumble drier and are supposed to soften the clothes/shorten the cycle/generally save the earth from impending doom? Pythagoras and Alcibiades (I needed Wikipedia to help with the spelling of that one), the little pink and purple drier balls. Aidan had a puncture this morning – not sure whether that underpins or undermines the random theory – I obviously didn’t have enough chalk thrown at me by Max the maths teacher. (or maybe we were too busy playing the cheese shop game…)

… so far, anyway. Mart mended my puncture (caused by a bit of glass) this morning, and it’s stayed up for two trips into town and back. I don’t suppose that I get that many punctures really, just a nasty week (five in four days) in the autumn, all in the back tyre. We spent hours inspecting it but never found anything.

Perhaps I’d made an enemy of some pan-dimensional being, one of whose manifestations was as an invisible, intangible thorn hovering on the edge of my inner tube, waiting until I’d cycled a mile in any direction before striking…

Either that, or it’s just a bizarre example of the randomness of randomness, like the time that, out of 1700-odd shuffled tracks, my iPod chose to play the two versions of “Like A Hurricane” on the same half hour ride.

Of course, the odds on a puncture are shortened by the fact that we each cycle 50-100 miles a week, mostly on paths, that a favourite local pastime, other than winding down the car window and jeering at cyclists, is smashing bottles on the self-same paths, and that Enniskillen has seven regular cyclists, four of which are us, so if there’s a bit of glass or hedge waiting for a tyre, it’s likely to be one of us who gets it.

Another puncture today, on the back tyre again. I had a spate of them before Christmas, and Mart spent all his time grappling with my bike, all rain and oil. I ought to be able to sort it out myself, of course, as my dad used to make me. This one is a bit trickier, as it’s got hub gears … spot the pathetic excuse. Here’s a picture of it, anyway – it’s a wonderful bike, even when it’s unrideable.

Went to a meeting of the local Mary’s Meals (provides meals at school for children in developing countries, e.g. Malawi) group this evening which was great. I moan away to myself (and anyone else listening) that I don’t know people in the town here, but there were three familiar faces there, including a lovely lady who looked after me when I collapsed spectacularly in the school foyer last year, having tried to ignore the fact I had ‘flu. (I mean that I had tried to ignore it, not that she had – is that what you call a hanging participle?) One thing about going around by bike is that your daily life becomes much more public – no convenient little car to hide in. But on the other hand, no one is watching, except for the really helpful people – the others are too busy trying to find somewhere to park.

According to today’s Sunday Times, only 27% of people are opposed to the proposed new nuclear power stations. And with the media’s general nuclear love-fest, it’s surprising that even a quarter of us can hold out…

Of course it’s understandable that, after having finally grasped something of the scale of climate change, many are only too relieved to cling to what looks like an answer. Unfortunately it isn’t one. I’m not an expert on this, but basically the situation seems to me to be:

* Nuclear power is no safer than it has ever been; accidents like Chernobyl and worse can happen at any time.

* Neither is it cleaner; contaminated waste will go on being created. Talk about a new generation of cleaner plants is just that.

* We still do not have any real solutions as to what to do with existing nuclear waste – burying it, either under land or sea cannot be a sensible or safe answer, particularly at a time when global weather patterns are becoming so much more extreme.

* In addition to the dangers of accidents, there are real opportunities for terrorists and violent regimes to obtain and use nuclear material from power stations as well as to cause catastrophe by a direct attack.

* Nuclear power is not cheap, but the most expensive form of energy. Figures that seem to show otherwise are concealing massive subsidies.

* It is by no means certain that there is enough obtainable uranium to power such stations in the long term.

* In any case, even if none of the above considerations applied, by the time the proposed stations are up and running, global temperatures will long since have reached unsustainable levels. Do we really want to squander the last of our precious time and fossil resources on this white elephant?

* The proposed new plants will benefit big business – the power and construction companies, and the military complex which depends upon nuclear power station for its material. This government has shown itself again and again to be in the pockets of the multinationals and the US government. This is no different.

* There are real alternatives available with a combination of renewable power and energy efficiency. This is our very last chance to free our children – please let us take it.

Note: This are my off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts on the subject. No doubt I’m wrong, or at least a bit overheated, about various bits. I apologise for whatever they are, but please don’t dismiss the whole anti-nuclear case on the basis of my patchy presentation of it… This is important stuff, too important to leave to whichever advertising exec is advising Number Ten this week.

For a more coherent analysis of the situation, see

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/briefing-nuclear-not-answer-apr07.pdf