Smoke rises over Belfast again ...

As acrid smoke rose up this morning into the clear autumn blue sky, I'm sure I wasn't the only person waking up across Northern Ireland with a sick feeling as Radio Ulster spread the news that fire bombs had destroyed the Boucher Road Homebase DIY store and seriously damaged two other Belfast stores.

The Homebase fire is reported to have spread into Reid Furniture store next door (smoke damage), while another device started a fire in the nearby Smyth’s toy store, all in the Shane Retail Park on Boucher Road. The third device damaged the city centre Ann Street branch of JJB Sports.

A sad day for NI retailers as the madness of the Newry firebombs (Wed 9/8), attacks on Coleraine (Sat 7/10) and Newtownabbey B&Qs (Sat 14/10) continues.

On a lighter note, the BBC ran a story about B&Q saving the day when doctors in the middle of orthopaedic surgery discovered they didn’t have the right tool to remove a metal plate …