From an understanding of how heroin might come to be contaminated with a soil-borne bacteria to a knowledge of the story of racist attacks elsewhere on this island, many of the questions that emerged on the periphery of some of the week's Irish news were answered, quite coincidentally, in BBC documentaries.
Part one of The Shadow Trade (BBC World Service, Friday) was one of these brilliant globe-spanning programmes that are so unique to the BBC, explaining how "sound management principles" and a lot of cannon-fodder go into the international illegal-drugs business. The transport of heroin from Afghanistan into Europe was spelled out - via an extraordinary ongoing drugs war in Iran - but the best stuff was about cocaine.
It had a timely opening: posh-sounding James told the story of blowing his nose in the shower: "the top of my nose came out - I'm 25 years old". The reporter was not in the mood to be sympathetic, and indeed asks him the question all responsible green consumers should be facing: "Do you have any idea where this chemical you're putting up your nose is coming from?"
James didn't, so we were introduced to Mauro, the Andean farmer. What sounded like the sound of James sniffing another line was actually Mauro emptying his sack of coca leaves. "He gets 30 cents for every 300 grammes of coca, an amount which, after processing, James in London buys for about $80." That's what I call value-added.
All the things that Third World farmers struggle to acquire for their legal crops are there in abundance when it comes to coca, as a UN official explains. "Credit is available, in cash, at the right time, right away. Advice for growing the coca is readily available. The crop is harvested and collected right away and paid for in cash."
Not all the profits up the line go to the big boys. Before the US and Colombian governments got some hold of this trade and cracked down (no pun intended), there was also a thriving, low-tech local industry producing coca-paste. Only after this stage of production did the Colombian cartels with their high-volume laboratories and global transport infrastructure enter the picture.
Rationalisation and restructuring have caused some change in the Colombians' global strategy, but in Peruvian cities such as Lima, a taste for smoking the paste has been encouraged as a form of economic protection against the vagaries of the global market.
The most notable difference between this and other global markets - apart from its relative beneficence to the providers of the raw material - is the ingenuity with which it operates. "A crime gang might start an apple export business, trade it entirely legitimately for two years, then one day slip a few fake, screw-top apples, stuffed with cocaine, in among their crates. The customs officer, aware that the crop is perishable and by now familiar with the company's business, lets the shipment through with barely a glance."
There's no beneficence, or roguish charm, about the last links in the transport chain - pathetic couriers like Rosie, an addict who got a mere £4,000 for running three kilos of cocaine into Britain, hundreds of thousands of pounds worth. She says the last time she did it, it was in the hope that she could earn enough to help her clean up her act and reclaim her child from social services. She was interviewed in a Barbados jail, from which she's due out in September 2003.
EVEN as David Richardson fought for his life in Dublin's St James's Hospital, Race Against Terror (BBC Radio 5 Live, Sunday) was telling us that in the North, since the ceasefires were declared, there has been a dramatic increase in racist incidents reported to the police. Or as one radio host whose programme was excerpted put it: "Between now and 12 o'clock: Chinese, blacks and Travellers - no one escapes Northern Ireland's bigotry."
Reporter Mandy McAuley had a funny set of ethno/geographic categories. "The Chinese are not the only community under attack: Africans and Asians have reported incidents. . ."
And her experts made unsubstantiated points about the two traditional "communities": "When faced with a third group, they seem to combine to be suspicious of them," one said, but offered no evidence of such combining. In fact, the point was made by someone else that Chinese or Indian takeaways are often caught in the middle of old-fashioned sectarianism, being located at flashpoints such as the Ormeau Road.
Nonetheless, this was an invaluable programme, demonstrating, among other things, how little is known about the situation of ethnic minorities - the estimate that they make up approximately two per cent of Northern Ireland's population turns out to be no better than an educated guess.
What was also notable, compared to the situation in the Republic, is how long established such communities are: so many of the people of Asian and African origin whom McAuley interviewed were indistinguishable on the radio from white Northerners.
Which doesn't mean their traditions are being lost. As someone else pointed out, for all the political talk about the Irish language in the new North, Cantonese is actually the second most widely-spoken language in Northern Ireland. Need it be said that, in spite of their isolation and victimisation, their groups still don't qualify for peace and reconciliation funding.
The RUC didn't emerge with glory, in spite of its ethnic liaison officers. One Chinese officer and his wife are fighting the RUC through an industrial tribunal for discrimination. And a police spokesman said of the huge increase in racial incidents, "I welcome that rise" - on the grounds that at least nowadays they're being reported.
But perhaps the most depressing story of bigotry came from republican Poleglass, where Travellers were run out of a longstanding site - and a candlelight procession took on whole new meaning, as Travellers believed their homes were about to be burned out.
Radio 5 Live was itself in the news this week, winning what really turned out to be the most pyrrhic of victories for the Beeb. Before we heard that BBC TV had been priced right off the English Premiership map - bye bye Match of the Day - the radio lads were winning a court injunction against talkSPORT, the Murdoch-linked station that became an unlikely free-speech champion by sitting its experts in front of the telly to bring us "live" commentary on Euro 2000 soccer matches. That, it seems, is a no-no: "live" means in the stadium, having forked over to UEFA for the rights, as Radio 5 Live had done.
Of course, on another occasion talkSPORT will be insisting on the same point. But you've gotta like their cheek, wot?