I’VE HAD a new idea for helping to solve the Northern problem. Sex, that’s what we need. Sex of the right sort, and more of it. Interdenominational intercourse, morning, noon and night.

The beauty of my plan is that even if it doesn’t work it will have been well worth the effort anyway. Not that it will take much of an effort. And it might work too. It has at least as much chance as the “peace process.”

I base this confidence on the observable fact that having sex is a great way to make friends. You know how it is – You meet this person in the pub or at a party or wherever and get to chatting and have a few laughs and then you say cheerio at the end of the night. What’s happened? You will have made this person into an acquaintance. You’ll nod to one another the next time you meet. Somebody asks, You know him/her? And you’ll respond, Sort of, we met, down the pub I think it was, a while back . . .

But then again – You meet somebody, hang in there together, grab a laugh, have a cuddle, go to bed, have good sex. What’s happened? You’ve made a friend. Even if you never go to bed together again, there’ll be a closeness between you arising out of the warm memory of shared intimacy. The next time you meet, you might go to bed again. Maybe this is even the reason you do meet again. Or maybe not. Either way, somebody asks, You know him/her? And you’ll respond, Yeah, sure, we’re friends as a matter of fact.

Strike a chord?

I know that this is the reverse of the way it’s supposed to work. The approved sequence is that you meet and arrange to meet again and then become close and eventually you go to bed. And that’s OK, too. But it’s my experience that more people become friends as a result of going to bed together than go to bed together as a result of becoming friends.

Ring a bell?

It is with this in mind that I now issue my Xmas ’93 message to the people of Ireland, particularly to the vigorous young people of Ireland, and most especially to the vigorous young people of Northern Ireland.

I do not suggest, because I am not so crass a person, that you should only sleep with people of the opposite religion. All I say is that should you find yourself over the festive season, or indeed at any other time, in a situation whereby you can choose to sleep with a person of your own religion or a person of the other persuasion, then all other things being equal, do, please, choose the person from the other side.

If everybody were to adopt this approach there would – I challenge anybody to deny it – there would be far more friendship as a result between Catholics and Protestants. And wouldn’t that be a consummation devoutly to be wished?

Fuck a Friend for freedom, Fenians!

Poke a Pape for peace, Prods!

Come together at Xmas.