I spent a few days with my family in London during the week. We've brought them many times over the years, and I love showing them the city I've travelled to for over 50 years.
We visited the National Gallery, where I tried my best to explain the evolution of western art from medieval times until today, and how each new school of art evolved from what had gone before. Unsurprisingly, the Impressionist gallery is always the busiest, no doubt due to its historical proximity to our times and the tragic life story of Vincent van Gogh and his missing ear.
I did my best to point out the genius of Constable's skies and the magnificence of Rembrandt's self-portraits. Attempting to make them more accessible to 12- and 14-year-olds, I described them as history's first examples of the selfie.
We also visited the British Museum, a collection of world treasures purloined by generations of English gentlemen who had plundered a British Empire where the sun never set, and they stole what they could get.
As well as general sightseeing, we also saw two musicals in the West End; my wife took my daughter to see Hamilton whilst I accompanied my son to The Book of Mormon. I didn't learn much about Mormonism but was treated to the best comedic debunking of a faith since the release of Monty Python's Life of Brian.
In the half-century I've been travelling to London, I thankfully no longer feel like a Viet Cong visiting America during the Vietnam war.
My first visit was as a nine-year-old on a trip with my primary school. My residing memory of it was feeling uncomfortable when a man asked me what I thought about the Irish bombing London.
It was then I realised that not everyone in London was like Dick van Dyke's cockney character in Mary Poppins, and that my Belfast accent ignited both suspicion and resentment.
I didn't return until another school trip, this time with my A-level politics class to visit the House of Commons. Gerry Fitt - then the MP - had agreed to act as our guide.
Tour completed, we retired to the Strangers' Bar for a tipple. Fitt's electoral support at home had slumped due to the rise of Sinn Fein. When a cheeky schoolmate asked if he thought he could win the next election, I remember him saying, "I know Sinn Féin want me out of this place, but they're not going to get their way."
At the time I thought this was bravado and wildly overconfident, but it turned out he knew what he was talking about as, having been defeated by Gerry Adams, he immediately moved into the Lords. Looking back now, it's obvious he had already been promised the parachute of a peerage long before the election.
As I grew older, every trip to London involved a tedious process of security checks, beginning at our own airports. In those days, everyone flying from here to Britain went through 'special' security vetting before boarding.
This involved being shuttled to a separate departure lounge where both your person and bags were thoroughly inspected. The airport security measures imposed after 9/11 were therefore no shock to NI travellers of my generation as it had been our normality for decades.
Upon arrival in London, you faced another layer of security which I never once managed to traverse without being stopped and questioned by Special Branch. For over 30 years I was selected for this 'special' treatment, which continued even after the Good Friday Agreement.
On one memorable occasion I was yet again being questioned by Special Branch when I noticed a familiar face passing. It was none other than Gerry Adams who was being escorted straight through security. Irate at the obvious injustice, I complained to the cop interrogating me, "Hey, how come he gets straight through, and I'm stopped?"
Unperturbed, the cop calmly replied, "We know who he is, we don't know who you are." Well, I couldn't argue with his logic.
These days, it's the name Mohammed and not O'Kane which sets off automated silent alarms at Heathrow. And so, travelling home once, I passed a man getting questioned by Special Branch for having the temerity of looking Islamic.
I knew by heart the list of questions he was being asked and recognised his look of resigned frustration.
I gave him a sympathetic nod as I passed which I hope translated into, "I know how you feel mate, honest, I do."
