Prejudice goes beyond colour. Cornwall and Devon have dialect words, 'grockle' is Devonian for a Cornish person, 'emmet' is the Cornish equivalent. Both now mean anyone not local. There was friendly prejudice across the Tamar years before colour was an issue. The Gun Field in Exmouth mounted Parliamentarian guns to prevent Royalists lifting the siege of Exeter.

Highlighting the needy with Anthony Bernard.

Ireland's problems are also serious with the imminent anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Northern Ireland loyalists resist a boundary in the Irish sea to keep the Irish Republic cosy within the EU. The alternative, obviously, was for goods to be checked instead when crossing from the Republic to mainland Europe. Now the 'Windsor Framework' tries to balance the EU and UK to keep people happy and satisfy the ambitions of various politicians, while the EU and the Republic still try to hang on to Northern Ireland.

Sausages, Pork Pies and Wensleydale cheese will become available in Northern Ireland. Returning from Paris on a Eurostar years ago, there were jealous stares when I lunched on a saved up pork pie. Perhaps expat Brits living in France will holiday in Ireland, stocking up with cases of sausages, pies and strong cheddar. With no boundary inside Ireland and free EU movement between Cork and Roscoff they could get home unchallenged. Someone could write a story or a film about this, whether comedy or tragedy depends on the author and whether French customs officials start inspections in Roscoff.

Windsor Guildhall was the venue chosen to announce the Framework. The town council 330 years ago insisted Christopher Wren's design should include extra pillars for support. The pillars were included but a few inches short, leaving a gap at the top as you can see today, confirming Christopher Wren's confidence that they were unnecessary. Maybe that is good example for well designed frameworks.

When first in Michigan, I went to a church with 99% black congregation and was well accepted, though white. When we were asked to offer peace to our neighbour, the whole congregation sought everyone they knew anywhere in the church for a greeting or hug, taking 30 minutes. Six miles further west, the same point with a mainly white congregation took barely one minute to share a brief handshake. The difference was behaviour, not skin colour.

The Challenger disaster was an event most of us remember; a space rocket exploded soon after launch killing all on board. Some propellant seals failed because they had been frozen the night before launch. The engineers all knew that would happen if the weather was too cold, but managers and decision makers were keen to stick to the schedule. In the inquiry, it was apparent that technical staff had expressed themselves badly, while managers were much more articulate and persuasive in pressing ahead with their fatally wrong decision.

It is not the colour of people's skin that besets us, but politicians and journalists who try to turn everything into political shades of blue, red, purple, yellow or green, race or gender, to suit their own programmes. We have real problems, lots of them, needing clear decisions. Did you see the bumper sticker: "Remember Guy Fawkes, the only person who went to Parliament intending to keep his promise!"?

The whole world is in turmoil; recession and inflation are bad worldwide. Many are really needy but some are just greedy. Who will be brave enough to sort it out?