It's a pretty quiet news day, unless you're ready to immerse yourself in some gory murder details.

But local elections are underway in the North, and also in England where my sister Jane reckons she has an outside chance of taking a seat in Tory-dominated Alton, Hampshire.

Back in this jurisdiction, the Prison Officers' Association is in conference in Sligo, where overcrowding tops today's agenda. And the Journal.ie continues to cover the HSE 'recruitment freeze.'

Meanwhile, the top official in New Zealand’s treasury department has beaten a slew of locals to become our new Central Bank governor. Let's hope he shares some of the Kiwi PM's qualities.

I'm happy to report that my favourite newspaper's back in the black thanks to its quality content and innovative online business model, which is based on voluntary payments from readers.

Finally, I don't know much about the gee-gees, but I'm told this is significant.

Nazi-ruled Berlin fell to the Russians on this day in 1945. To mark the occasion, Zen brings you the Golden Gate Quintet singing Willie Johnson's Stalin Wasn't Stallin'.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Bernard

PS: Don't tell Martina, but our data protection commissioner reckons US tech firms are breaching GDPR.