...but i have to go and help celebrate my father in law's 80th birthday.
i love him dearly but the chaos surrounding any family event there just drives me bonkers.

the world and his wife turns up, dinner time is worse than feeding time at the pighouse (with the tv on), he's deaf so everyone shouts,
two dogs compete for the prime position in case of food scraps, two nieces squabble and end up eating chocolate instead of proper food...

but i love him dearly.

so that's why i'm doing it.
and i will be nice.
promise.

most of the time.

right. i'm ready now... thanks for listening.
see you next week!

drive on B roads
explore side streets
stop to sniff flowers
look me in the eye

i'll probably think of a lot more after i've pressed 'save'

my sort of people don't do things like that.

thousands of clever people work in education - whether they teach or administer or do the strategic thinking (?)
by the way, i'm not one of them.

and we've had an education system for at least 150 years.

so why do we keep getting page after page of new legislation;  week after week of conferences and think tanks;  story after story about how britain's education system needs a shake up....and, no doubt, a slghtly different system in just about every part of the country?

surely, someone, somewhere should be able to say - this is the way to do it, and the same system applies wherever you live in britain?
sadly, i suspect if i look through my telescope hard enough, i'll see...

• an education industry that must impose change in order to sustain itself.
• lots of clever people convinced their way is right and eager to stand up at conferences to say so. 
• and lots of partially informed politicians ready to be persuaded that they're going to make history by doing it right, this time.

i signed up as a volunteer today.
i'll be supporting age concern in a variety of ways, including helping them out with their publicity, and being a sort of link person
helping people who live alone to meet others.

i've felt guilty for years about not doing enough, especially for older people.
i've read so many horror stories i just thought if i could help, even in a small way, it might make some difference.

now i feel quite saintly.

but i have to wait to be frisked and stripped and investigated by the criminal records bureau, before i can be let loose.
and quite right too.

(thinks... i wonder what they'll find out about me?)
(thinks again...if they take too long over it, i might be needing age concern's support meself.)

meanwhile, old age is a big issue nationally, and i'll be keeping a close eye on things through my telescope...

...to make you feel good?

i'll report back later.

i love the web.
but it does make me laugh sometimes.
we create this unbelievable technology, and now the world's web waves are crammed with stuff like shopping lists, and blogs, (like this one) and all the day to day stuff that we used to just get on with in private!

now i discover that more than half of all kids in korea aged between three and five, use the internet for an average of four hours a week.

doing what?

• answers on an email please!

eleven out of the twelve men who walked on the moon were boy scouts.

i wonder if they got an astronaut badge?

anyway, it explains why i never got to walk on the moon.
i walked out on the boy scouts and went in search of a life.

just think - if i'd stayed on, i might have walked on the moon.

but i wouldn't have had half so much fun!

producing one kilogram of beef emits the same amount of CO2 as you driving your car for 250 kilometres. 

or, if you prefer, about two pounds of beef = 155 miles.

around 500,000 'foreigners' came to live in  britain last year.
and 400,000 people moved to live abroad.

but look again...
100,000 of the 500,000 coming here were british people returning home.
and half the 400,000 moving out, were british.

so i make that 400,000 people moving here from other countries.
and 200,000 'foreign' people moving out.

so the net growth in the 'foreign' population of britain in 2006 was 200,000 people.
balanced out by 200,000 british people buggering off to get a suntan in australia, new zealand, france and spain.

and the population of britain is, what, about 65 million?
what is all the fuss about?

people are moving in both directions because they want a better life.

so in the words of my niece - "get over it"

now learning my lines for 'the crucible' by arthur miller.

it's about the real life Salem witch hunt of 1692.
the villagers were stirred up into madness by superstition, paranoia and good old malice.

can't think why i was picked for this!

....does the day go?

it's dark already.

i wonder if the day would seem longer if i made more of my time.

people say time goes quicker when you're enjoying yourself.

but i don't want my life to go quickly!

hmmm.....