A recent news story in the Irish Times began: 'A court has been asked to settle a dispute between a Dublin lesbian couple over the proceeds from their e470,000 [£320,000] former home.' Those not familiar with the changes that have swept through the Irish capital over the last few years would have to wonder which feature of that arresting introduction was the more remarkable: the matter-of-fact reference to a same-sex relationship, or the impressive market value of an average house in one of the city's outer suburbs.

Unlike the old Co-Op building on the Newcastle bank of the Tyne, which has rebranded itself the Hotel Malmaison, Gateshead's new Centre for Contemporary Art has kept the name of Baltic Flour Mills. The original 1950s tiles forming the giant black letters have been scrupulously cleaned of decades of kittiwake droppings and the culprits - a protected species - rehoused in a kittiwake tower downwind. The Baltic is proud of its industrial heritage.

Umm Qasr The shriek of artillery shells has died away from Umm Qasr, the first city in Iraq to be taken by allied troops, but another whining sound can already be heard here. It is the sound of the doubters and sceptics at home, wringing their hands on short-wave radio programmes and satellite television broadcasts because this war has not already been won and Saddam's regime toppled. The last Gulf war was won after 100 hours of ground fighting; Kosovo was secured without a shot being fired by allied troops; and an entire African country, Sierra Leone, was effectively saved within two days by a battalion of British paratroopers.