Gertsamtkunstwerk

They want what...?

Twelve recent searches that tickled me:

1. tara palmer-tomkinson wellies
2. sunny delight pagan holiday
3. private public school posh Brixton talk words long home
4. british sayings like wobbly
5. locate my house
6. beasteality -Scary Duck was just below me on this one - and my hit was his comment!
7. pictures of perfect tits not blocked
8. should wife sunbathe topless - should husband dictate to wife
9. celebrities who think they are diva's
10. world record panis in anal hole - would that be Panis Analicus
11. David Beckham erotic fiction - he writes as well? is there no end to his talents?
12. gay slipped denture

A good bunch of well-balanced people coming here, then,

Kids TV Themes

Answers required, please:

1 This is 29 Arcacia Road
2 Lets ride, with the family down the street
3 Wait and see…who's on? Find out, stay tuned, ok, lets go!
4 There's a voice that keeps on calling me, down the road that's where I'll always be
5 Bouncing here and there and everywhere, high adventures that's beyond compare
6 Your letter was only the start of it, one letter and now you're a part of it
7 Switch off your TV set and do something less boring instead
8 Sunny day, Sweeping the clouds away
9 You can run with us, weve got everything you need
10 Making good use of the things that we find, things that the everyday folks leave behind
11 He's the strongest, He's the quickest, He's the best
12 Why don't you carry on, with what your doing
13 Here I come to save the day
14 When your world looks kind of weird and you wish that you weren't there
15 Dance you cares away, worry's for another day
16 So if your not at ease with your noboly knees and your fingers are all thumbs
17 You can knock it you can rock it you can go to Timbuktu
18 If your mansion house needs haunting just call
19 Here are the people who would say hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye
20 Down at the bottom of the garden, among the birds and the bees
21 Have you ever, ever felt like this when strange things happen
22 It's a whole lot of fun, prizes to be one
23 Oh come with me to the rolling see where the weather is calm and still
24 Up above the streets and houses
25 he's the one and only truly original

NB: some of the spelling is dodgy in here - apologies, but not my doing.

the day thou gavest Lord is ended

He went to the pub to watch the football. I couldn't. I stayed at home and cleaned picture frames. I can't bear the football at this time of year.

So what if we're now Five points ahead with two games to go. They've got three matches and they can get nine points, so we have to get five to guarantee winning the Championship, so that really means six and therefore we have to beat Charlton at home and Everton away. Everton who are looking for a place in Europe.

This is English Premiership football. Either you're interested so you know exactly what's what, or you're not, and thus unlikely to click any link I might provide.

Ten years ago - ten years, it's like the blinking of an eye - when we won it for the first time in my lifetime, and Harriet and I sipped champagne out of Manchester United mugs, I thought that it would cease to matter: Holy Grail achieved, mission over.

But I'm ten years older and a few days wiser, and it still bloody matters.

I rustled up a stunning little meal, and I have to say I was jolly proud. A starter of pitted, spiced olives (from the Greek deli in Brixton), M&S Irish soda bread and Kerrygold, a main of Marks and Spencer Fish pie and Tesco sweetcorn, and a pudding of M&S zabaglione, washed down with a bottle of Tesco Chianti Classico Reserva (you see, Lyle, I am entirely promiscuous in my use of supermarkets). We could have had it slumped on the sofa on our laps in front of TV, but, no we sat up at table, with a solitary candle burning,
and "Classic Ads" on the CD, the table adorned by a small vase of fabric flowers.

We decided that we shall have, as "Our Song" Ella Fitzgerald's 'Someone To Watch Over Me.' Better than 'Strangers in the Night'.

Incidentally, 'Bel, I would be lying if I said that my posts yesterday were not influenced in some measure by your personal circumstances, but also by the posting of another blogger on my list; also by some risque banter in the week with the person I dreamed about, plus an ongoing discussion with Jimmy about why his ex-wife's infidelity led to their marriage ending, yet his frequent dalliances didn't seem to count.

Plus the damn annoying wet fish face slapping dream, which unnerved me.

Work around the house

Today: John came round and did stuff in the shower room. Earlier in the week he had put a surface over the plaster to make the tiles adhere. Today the tiles have been stuck back on the bottom right. As a payment he got my old gas fire, for which my front room is not adequately ventilated. And anyway the fire is too small for the fireplace.

Jimmy sugar soaped the ceiling and walls in the front room and undercoated the window frame. I did masses of chucking out of paper, brewed tea for the boys, washed the ceramics and took all the ornaments etc upstairs. I, sadly, threw out a blue and green glass candlestick which had been a 30th birthday present but is cracked beyond redemption.

I found my six metres swimming certificate from 1975 and a 25 yards certificate from 1977. I refuse believe that Altrincham Leisure Centre has a yards pool. I was short-changed by Trafford. Also found my Brownie enrolment certificate.
(Never a dull moment at Gert's cottage).

Also trimmed and swept up a binbag full of detritus from the bottom left corner of garden and replaced it with two enormous exterior candles retrieved from a skip in Chelsea by John.

Corny

Really Bad Country Song Titles

Did I Shave my Legs for This?
Come out of the Wheatfield Nellie, You're Going Against the Grain
Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through The Goal Posts Of Life.)
Here's A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)
How Can I Get Over You if You Won't Get Out from Under Me?
I Don't Care if it Rains or Freezes 'Long as I Have My Plastic Jesus Sittin' on the Dashboard of my Car
I Gave Her My Heart And A Diamond And She Clubbed Me With A Spade
I Want a Beer as Cold as My Ex-Wife's Heart
I'd Rather Pass a Kidney Stone than Another Night With You
Our Love is Illegal, Cause Our Names Ain't the Same

via Sore Eyes

What a day

You may be wondering why I wrote so much today, a Saturday, when I'm often out and about with Jimmy. He spent most of the afternoon with his father who's in hospital, and he didn't sleep well last night, so has gone off early to bed. After he had been to the hospital he went and had a few too many in the pub and turned up drunk.

Usually when that happens - much less frequently - I get really angry, because I'm on edge, convinced he's spoiling for a fight. It was different today; I know why he got drunk, and I was annoyed at myself for being impatient, intolerant and non-understanding.

He believes his father is dying. He barely eats anything, is as thin as a bone, and lacking in any kind of energy. Jimmy had to spend an hour persuading him to watch the Celtic match the other night. Although he says he's looking a lot better from being overnight in hospital.

I don't know what to do or say. I have to be blunt - I don't like his father. I'm not alone in thinking that he's self-centred, self-serving and manipulative. I have it on good authority that he's always been like that, it's not merely a product of old age.

And he is old - 84. Jimmy is upset that his father is so frail. I can't feel any emotion. I guess I just have to look after Jimmy. And try and make sure he doesn't try drowning his sorrows in whiskey.

We sat up for a while together watching 100 Years, 100 Passions. He was saying how dated some of the old films seem now - although he displayed an encyclopaedic knowledge of certain films - he claims it was his mother who was the enthusiastic. I suggested that it depends: Casablanca is a classic, but Brief Encounter just looks stilted and irrelevant. Guess what, Brief Encounter is not on the list, but can one really argue with the top three:

1. Casablanca


2. Gone With the Wind


3. West Side Story

Two of my favourites feature lower down: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I cannot remember seeing on terrestrial TV, and the Sound of Music. As one of the talking heads said - that scene in the Gazebo, where they sing "Something Good" -

For here you are standing there loving me, whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good
Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good

- is one of the romantic, and whenever I see it I always full momentarily head-over-heels in crush on Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp.

Is it just for the Posh?

One more thought on the subject and I'll let go.

 First read this and this

Sex, love, relationship, cohabiting, marriage. What are they about? As I observed in a bar at NUS Conference many years ago, when we were campaigning against the enactment of Clause 28, why is it that the so-called Christian moralists emphasise that traditional marriage is about sharing a life and companionship, and so on, and that sex is just a small part of that, but when it comes to homosexuality it's all about anal intercourse.

It's a bit like Butterflies. As far as I could gather, she never actually slept with the bloke, but she knew she was 'committing adultery in her heart.' Like Bill and Monica - the nature of the sex act was a mere technicality to the motivation.

Is a no-strings fling a lesser degree of infidelity than a full-blooded affair? Is it more palatable if you stop at Deansgate? Do people have affairs to make up for a shortfall, or to seek new variety, in their physical life? Or is it because they want to be with that person and the existence of another is immaterial to that.

For that matter, what is it that makes us couple off in the first place? Is it a physical sexual impetus or a socially-driven need? Would it work if we had a 100% satisfactory sex-life with our partner and got 100% of our companionship needs from platonic friends. Or do I need the mixture of a not-quite-perfect (interpret that how you will) sex life and the care and attention, and the great company that can come from only one person?

People ask 'what is love? is this love?' but rarely ask 'what is sexual desire?'

I've alluded before to my tendency to have crushes. They are characterised by a physical reaction to being in their presence (or seeing them on TV) - a physical reaction that includes an increase in pulse rate, perhaps a slight trembling, and a dampening of the palms. But is that really sexual attraction? I have similar physical symptoms when I hear fantastic music, or when I learn that Arsenal have drawn at Bolton, or when there is something fast-moving and fun in the Blogosphere. That can't be a sexual response. So am I incorrect in interpreting my excitement at being in the presence of a crush-object, or finding their address on 192.com (not that I would use it), as being a sexual reaction, or a sexual attraction.

Maybe I just want to spend sometime with that person.

But yet, I don't feel that with women. Sure, there are plenty of women whose company I enjoy, or female celebrities I admire - maybe one or two I ever-so-slightly fancy in a 'would never do anything about it' way. but I don't feel that frisson in the same way.

And, ultimately, I think, what is the point? For the sake of argument, suppose I were to embark on an affair with said crush-object, what would be the outcome? The newly established status quo could not be left unchangeable.

There are three options, broadly. One, to continue a perpetual juggling a act until old age and death overtake, which I think would be mentally draining. Two, to have a brief fling, and then have to tolerate the embarrassment of being in the same office as that person (or find a new job, for the wrong reasons). Or thirdly for each to leave their current partners, which I regard as unthinkable, and anyway couldn't be done without a great deal of upheaval and having to deal with the hurt of the innocent parties and also the reaction of friends and relatives.

Yet people still do it.

State building

This started off as a response to the Admiral's comment below, but grew, so I promoted it to 'post' status.

Not wrong. I will be honest and say that altruism would be very low on my list of motivations.

However, I do think that we have a role to play in State-building, whether it's done under the aegis of UKGov, EU, or UN. In the long months leading up to Illegal Invasion. I read many concerns - which I shared - that the US would go in, destroy, and frank bough out, leaving others to pick up the pieces. You and I opposed the war. Unfortunately, that doesn't alter the reality that it happened.

I happen to believe that the best way to ensure that Iraq is rebuilt as a peaceful, prosperous, democratic nation is to work towards establishing the rule of law. I was being flippant about the need for auditors. In my real view, democracy is about the freedom to vote in open, free elections, with a freedom of speech and assembly etc, but is also about the way that civic society operates.

Paddy Ashdown was on the radio in his capacity as Commissioner for Bosnia, and talking about how they had established an efficient and non-corrupt police force, but their effectiveness was compromised by the willingness of judges to take bribes.

If I can contribute to establishing a (relatively) uncorrupt rule of law, I'll have no qualms of playing a small role. If done wrongly, it will be imperialist, but if done sensitively should be no more imperialist than the work of DfID in developing countries.

(Which may well be a whole different debate, but one in which my views are informed by superficial information.)

Nice to have you on board, BTW. I know you've been lurking a while, and I've been lurking back!

No sympathy required

I'm conscious that if I blog about minor ailments, kind people are caring enough to leave sweet messages of get well. I don't require these messages, although you can laugh at two and sigh at the other.

Yesterday, I climbed on a chair to reach a photo album from the highest shelf to scan a photo into this blog. I fell off. This morning I realised that I have a three inch by one area of tenderness (which will be a bruise by Sunday) on my left leg just below my knee and the tiniest of tweaks to a muscle near my right knee.

This morning, taking my jacket off the coathanger in the wardrobe, I managed to smack myself in the eye with the coathanger.

The other one is slightly embarrassing. For some months, on-and-off, I have had a slight but irritating itch at my back entrance. I went to the doctor a while back and she prescribed me some cream to stick up there.

Yesterday the itch had turned to a burning sensation and had moved somewhat forward. I also felt a dull ache at the very very pit of my stomach when answering a minor call of nature. I had a fiddle through NHS Direct Online, and the answer seemed to be - call NHS Direct. I did, and to cut a long story short, I should never have been prescribed that cream, because I have contact dermatitis, and that cream can cause a reaction that leads to tiny abrasions on the skin, a perfect breeding place for bacteria.

I have never been satisfied with this doctor's practice in the three years I have been there, and I really do intend to move. One of the bits of advice from the NHS Direct nurse was to go to my GP today.

Yeah, right.

I'll never be a novelist

I think of myself as a writer. It's an affectation and a conceit. It's a bit like Iain Duncan-Smith thinking of himself as a future Prime Minister. Or some analogy with someone who has an over-inflated expectation of their prospects.

I started young. I started by re-writing the classics. You know, I wrote a story about some children who spent their time messing about in boats in the Lake District.

Puberty approached and I turned to writing sex/love stories. Improbable fantasies about me having a romance/wild-fling with a pop star or footballer. I wrote them for the amusement of my class mates. When I developed crushes on celebrities, I wrote fantasies about me and them. I carried on doing this, off and one, until I was thirty two.

But it has often crossed my mind, that if I just sat down and applied myself that novel inside me would come out. I'm not saying it would be great, or even good, but it would be written.

On my computer I have a file of phrases lifted from the 'crush on celebrity' stories, phrases that I think are good, and can be incorporated into the future blockbusting Booker prize winner. About four years ago, I started going through my diaries from early teenage years, with the intention of completing the series. The objective was to extract events and emotions that could be recycled into a novel - a novel about teen angst. "I am so depressed, I've just realised that I will never be friends with a Manchester United footballer How can I survive without this?"

The advice that writers always give to novices is "Write about what you know." This is where I have always hit a stumbling block. What do I know? Of life, that is. I thought, maybe I could do a sex-and-auditing novel.  But I doubt it would sell. I suspect there's a story to be written of the mismanagement and puerile politics of Lambeth council.

Where I lack is any real life experience. What have I done? Went from school to Uni to a proper job. Had a few short relationships on the way. Had a couple of bouts of depression at 18 and 32.  I thought maybe it would be possible to look through blogs for inspiration, things people do. (I've always hesitated to use my friends' lives because they might be offended by a too-close-to-the bone portrayal).

But it always boils down to one major problem. I can imagine, and describe, a character. I can imagine a narrative where someone starts out being one sort of person, and through circumstance, changes into another - a goody-goody priggish type becomes a gangster’s moll; someone with a good degree from a good university starts accountancy training, fails her exams, loses her job, and ends up an alcoholic sleep around; someone who's bitter at life experiences genuine human concern from a geeky anorak and her outlook on life changes.

But it's so boring. There's no plot, no denouement, no suspense. So I think up unlikely but exciting situations which can really transform that person: related to a perpetrator of a notorious crime, or the conned into becoming a mule for the drugs baron boyfriend with whom she's infatuated, or suffering unbearable personal tragedy. In one of my 'infatuated-with-celebrity' attempts, I even created a situation where I was a novelist who was in a relationship with a well-known public figure, and wrote a novel whose contents were so shocking that I couldn't publish it in my own name because of the repercussions on him.  I was able to summarise the plot and why it was so shocking (and all was revealed when we turned up together to the Booker Prize ceremony).

But I couldn't write a real novel.

See, I can't even bring this post to a satisfactory end: heaven only knows how a novel I wrote would end.

Haiku bus soap-opera

It sounds like nonsense
But out in the blogosphere
there's haikus galore.

Mark has suspended
His series called Walking With
Mark and over on

Still I Rise there has
been a soap opera in
haiku unfolding

Fight

Coming home on the bus, I glanced out of the window and noticed a big kick-off happening. Or rather, a group of teenagers beating another teenager with a stick. This was happening in the bus shelter and the nearby road of my bus stop, the last bus stop on the route. The driver hesitated to open his doors, but then, perhaps, realising that they were not interested in the bus, or because he could hear the police sirens arriving, did open them. Nevertheless, half the people, including myself, hung back on the bus. The other half rushed off, and away.

As I was finally getting off, I saw some plain clothes people leap out of an unmarked, but blued-and-twoed car, and run down the drive, and through the alleyway of the block of flats. One of the plain clothes officers was saying "Beep beep beep beep," like a small child playing at police. Everyone moved out of her way, though - presumably a tried and tested method. The uniforms arrived in a marked car. I didn't want to hang around, so crossed over the main road. A couple of teenagers who had been behind me on the stairs of the bus were moaning about people not getting off quickly enough. Silly things probably wanted to join in. As I was going into the newsagent, a police van arrived.

I conducted my business and went home. Through the car forecourt I saw a procession of teenagers coming out of the flats and side streets and make for the scene of the incident. I went upstairs and watched from my window. I was a little shaken when I saw an ambulance drive off, bluing-and-twoing, and a few minutes later the police van, in similar emergency mode.

Of course, if I had been a proper blogger, I would have grabbed my camera from my rucksack and snapped away. I didn't even look at my watch.

Ten search requests

Here's ten that amused me for a second or two:

1. Manchester Arndale photos why?
2. thatcher resignation crown satan
3. Tring Hertfordshire blog - I have yet to encounter one but I presume everyone is welcome into the UKbloggers community
4. Lambeth housing benefit shit or incomplete - you may think it's shit now but it was a lot worse when I first became a councillor
5. Euan Blair virginity
6. How to block MSN messenger in Soho - same as everywhere else, I suppose
7. thoughts on the London underground - it is not a Revolutionary Organisation
8. free wibe site sex
9. only god can judge me music - that good is it? Or bad?
10. photoes of the chairs in garden

And I was 50th of about 26,775,365 containing "photos"

I also get frequent requests for gay footballers, and mods and rockers. I am the focus of the world's obsession with Oliver Kahn leaving his pregnant wife for a barmaid.

And about one in ten of the google searches are relevant to my site.

What I did at the weekend

Not that it was work all weekend. There was the small matter of eating, as well. We got through five bottles of wine in three days, which is about right, I guess. Jimmy's gone home now, to look after his father.

On Friday we had Toasted Goats' Cheese with Blackened Sherry-vinegar Onions and Smoked Haddock with Spinach and Chive Butter Sauce.

On Saturday, we had Delia's marinated mushrooms, which aren't online, Thai Prawn Curry with Pineapple, and Sainsbury's Panna Cotta.

On Sunday, we had Sainsbury's Horseradish and Trout mousse with oatcakes, followed by Sainsbury's Orkney Salmon and Asparagus parcels, with stir fry spring onions, French beans and garlic, followed by Sainsbury’s Simnel Cake.

But I took no photos!

Tonight I am having a Sainsbury's Vegetarian Indian Meal for one.

Match of the Millenium....Bye bye, Sol

Henry was off-side.

All Saints, Clive Anderson, Benny Andersson, Jeremy Beadle, Dani Behr, Nigel Benn, Jackie Chan, Alan Davies, Ray Davies, Dido, Frankie Dettori, Colin Firth, Ainsley Harriot, Audley Harrison, HRH Prince Harry of Wales, Kate Hoey MP, Nick Hornby, Gary Kemp, Martin Kemp, Reggie Kray, Chris Lowe, Rory McGrath, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Johnny Rotten, Greg Rusedski, The Shamen, Chris Smith MP, Mel Smith, David Soul, Pete Tong, Phil Tuffnell, Barbara Windsor, Dale Winton.

Your boys were....DRAWN... this evening! Season on!

What an atmosphere! It was like being on the terraces in the 80s! Couldn't see a bloody thing. Half the neighbourhood were in the pub - the other half were in the rough pub. Every race and creed and colour in the world were in the pub. It's never been so busy - except for when the Black Elvis is on, said one of the Three Ians.

Woo woo woo woo woo woo

SEASON ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We've got Blackburn, Tottenham, Charlton and Everton.

The Dirty Cheating Bastards have got Middlesbrough, Bolton, Leeds, Southampton and Sunderland.

SEASON ON!!!!!

No one else matters

Duel to the end!

SEASON ON!!!!!!!

this was post was brought to you by Gordon's Gin and Schweppes Bitter Lemon (Cadbury Scweppe's website is so shite it does not give me the opportunity to display. Mind you, the Gordon's Gin site doesn't understand deep links....)

And the Hand-in-Hand sauna.

Phew what a scorcher!

My calamitous friend

Do you ever have a mad commenting moment on someone else's blog?

I did, at Marn-eh

This is what I wrote:

A friend of mine was *entertaining* a Dutch physicist who arrived late bearing a warm bottle of white wine. The white wine was put in the freezer (I know, I know, never put wine in freezer or microwave).

After the *entertaining* finished for the time being, she went to get the bottle of wine which rolled out of the freezer and smashed causing her foot to be cut. And bleed a lot.

It was still bleeding the next day, so she went to the hospital and was told that she had severed a nerve. If she had been to the hospital immediately it could have been stitched.

Instead, to avoid leaping ten foot in the air everytime she stubbed her toe she had to have an operation.

This was three months after she developed whiplash at the hairdressers.

The Dutch physicist was never entertained again.

But still referred to as the Dutch Physicist (to distinguish him from the Serial Legover, Bar-steward Features etc)

Apologies to Mrs. H if you're reading this!

Road to Damascus

These Guardian articles - Bush vetoes Syria war plan and US rattles the sabre but prepares for peace persuade me.

Especially,

It will take many months for the US to rebuild its arsenals of cruise missiles and satellite-guided smart bombs, the principal weapons used in the opening stages of the air war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For now.

I found Jack Straw's "Syria isn't next on the list" chilling. Shouldn't that have been "What list?"

In the build-up to the Iraqi invasion, some people (disingenuously) drew parallels with Munich and the failure to protect Czechoslovakia from Hitler. Certainly, although I was - and remain - opposed to the war, I do acknowledge that the rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was, to my knowledge, significantly more brutal than its closest contemporary comparators. It was, however, a false analogy with Hitler, because, let's be brutal, Britain did not go to war to protect the human rights of oppressed German residents. And the US most certainly didn't.

It would be infantile to compare the US, UK, Australian and Polish invasion of Iraq with the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. However, the Powers failed to stop the Anschluss, and failed to stop the German bombing of Civil War Spain, and failed to stop the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

It was established at Nuremberg that it is illegal to invade a sovereign nation except when that has already invaded another. Therefore Gulf War I was justified on this criterion, although may have been prevented if George Bush I's State Department hadn't - allegedly - given Saddam the go-ahead to invade Kuwait. This current adventure isn't, although history shows that the victors are not tried for War Crimes.

If the US and a coalition of the willing invade Syria, would that be in any way equivalent to Poland?

There is a part of my brain that computes a logic in the reasons for invading Syria: WMD, funding of terrorists, repressive regime.

But my brain is bigger. Assad is said to be 'not as bad as his father'. He seems quite open to dialogue with the West - it was a canny diplomatic move to invite him for tea at Buck House - he trained as an ophthalmologist in London. His wife describes herself I am British and I am an Arab.

The time will come when once again the Anti-War people will be forced to articulate why they are Anti-war. In the meantime, let's not allow the Rumsfeld/Cheney axis and their puppets Bush/Powell issue their vicious threats. Perhaps a bit more diplomacy, boys? And when there is a war every single warmongering bastard amongst will have to stand up and explain exactly what he did to prevent war.

I have read so much recently about the ideology of the neo-cons in the US - the Wolshowitz/Perle/Feith/Cheney/Rumsfeld brigade. I have read how this combines with the idiotChristianity of the idiotBush. I find it incredible that their ideology/theology is about removing Islam, Islamism and Arabs (between which they appear not to be able to differentiate) from the Middle East to fulfil a theological destiny whereby Christians are poised to be in the right place come the Armageddon, with Jews acting as the useful-but-dispensable foot-soldiers, or alternatively, the more practical ideology of lebensraum, perhaps in act of atonement for inherited cultural collective guilt for letting the Holocaust happen.

Perhaps that man who has reappeared outside the Tube, decrying, "Repent, for these are the last days" is right.

Irreverent quip

Who's that idiot who's reading the BBC Ten O'Clock News? 'A meeting to build Doomacracy. Thousands took the streets (sic) in protest.'

Loss

Read this post at Making Light, read the eloquence of the comments and reflect on the Barbarism which has been allowed to happen.

Only three months ago I spent a day in Cairo, barely touching the surface, but seeing the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx and the remains from Tutankhamen's tomb. Treasures that are three thousand years old. Our guide for the day was an Egyptologist, Hannan, and she described the centuries of looting that had removed precious artefacts from such a historic place. Three thousand years ago, the Egyptians were creating this spendour. Two thousand years before this was the Sumerian civilisation.

Destroyed in a day.

How can this be compared to the loss of human life? It can't. But what are we without civilisation?

Utterly uncivilized.

When history has forgotten Geworge Bush and Saddam Hussain, and Jennifer Lopez and whatever counts as culture today, history will remember the desecration of civilisation.

From the comments ' Donald Rumsfeld quipped,

"The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?'"

Not feeling well

Been feeling icky all weekend. Too icky - women's stuff - to go to pub to watch Man United slaughter Newcastle 6-2. Too icky to do housework, so I'm living in a pigsty. Not literally, obviously...

Spent the afternoon being pale and interesting on the sofa. Summoned up enough energy to go to the Blue Bird round the corner. It used to be a rather excellent Nepalese, now they've rebranded it as Indian with a bit of Nepalese which is rubbish, especially when there's a very good Indian a few yards away. Then to the pub for a gathering of the clan. Two of Jimmy's nieces are off to Australia for a few months, or longer. Assembled were two of his brothers (we missed the third), two sons, five nieces and a nephew. Some with partners. I drank copious quantities of whiskey in double quick time. I was so sloshed when I got home I needed escorting to the loo and upstairs. I woke up with a stonking headache and a throat like an ashtray. I had a glass of Resolve, and some more water, then, after half a cup of coffee I emptied an enormous volume of stomach contents into the loo (when I heave I always cry - do other people do that?)

I returned to bed for two hours, and then eventually went to Wetherspoons where I had two glasses of Perrier and a Mediterranean vegetable pasta bake and treacle sponge. WE did not stay very long, because I was coughing and sneezing, and drowsing, and jelly legged. I spent most of the evening on the sofa, including some of it sleeping.

War is over?

Okay, I know that there are no claims as such. There were some interesting pictures on the telly news. Sorry I didn't watch them all day, but I had some vital audits to produce an annual report on, and others to plan. I know this is not earth shattering stuff, but like so many of us, I have a job which has little global significance. Ah well, it pays the bills.

The fall of Saddam Hussein is A Good Thing. Now is the time for the difficult part to begin. I hope that I can look back on this in a year's time and say, "Yes, it really was an unqualified success and I was wrong to oppose the war."

We - we being the International Community, whatever that is - have now to assist and empower the Iraqi population in building a civil society with a rule of good law. We have to ensure that the infrastructure of Iraq is rebuilt. We have to oppose any attempt by the fundamentalist warmongers of Washington to move on into Iran and Syria, we have to ensure that Israel is no longer supplied with the weapons to destroy Palestine.

And there are other issues from which we have averted our gaze. Frizzy Logic has raised the issue of the war in DR Congo which is barely getting a whisper.

Possibly I speak only for myself, but I know very little of what is happening in Afghanistan now, or Kosovo, or Bosnia. War makes good telly, but what comes afterwards is less interesting. As a student, a copy of a Labour Party Election Poster of 1945 adorned my wall - I now have the mug. It reads "Now Win the Peace". I hope to come back and read this in a year and say, "Yes, the peace was won."

Prostituting my blog

I don't like this BlogShares thing. I don't recall giving my permission for people to buy and sell shares in me. It makes me feel a tad tawdry. I thought maybe I could delist, but that can only be done via the forum, for which one has to register, and I really don't see why I have to do that.

I'm sorry, I may seem like an overreaction, but I started blogging for fun, and it seems that somehow, other people, of whom I know nothing, can arbitrarily buy and sell shares in my original work. I know it's only 'for fun' but how dare these people try to assign a monetary value to my pastime. It seems that both my blogs are listed because I ping 'Weblogs' when publishing. That's partly because it's a default with MT, and largely so that my regulars and not-so-regulars know that I've updated.

Arguing through the door

When I arrived home this evening there was a police car parked outside. My neighbour was emerging from his house and told me that the house in the corner had had a break-in.

I walked up my path to see some post hanging out of my letter box - the equivalent of a sign saying "This house is empty!" I had a look and it was from some company I had never heard of - AccuRead - saying that they had come to read my gas meter. Some mistake, I thought, I'm with British gas.

Half an hour later is a knock on the door. I looked out the peep hole but could see no one. I called out "Who is it?" He said he had come to read my gas meter; he had put a card through earlier. I explained that I am with another company. He said he was doing it for British Gas. I said that there was no mention of British Gas on the card. He said he wasn't going to murder me. So I let him in and he murdered me...

Seriously, I explained to him that I do not let strangers into the house without an appointment. He kept insisting that he was harmless. I had to say firmly four times that I do not let strangers into the house without an appointment. He said that he understood that people get nervous but he was only here to read the gas meter.

I didn't think it was necessary for me to stand arguing about whether or not I was letting him into my house. I expect this company have got the contract from British Gas for meter reading. The silly thing is, if it had been a BG card, I would have opened the door to see inspect some ID - unless I had fainted at the shock at seeing a BG meter-reader. I have only had my meter read twice in seven and a half years of living here. On each of those occasions, it was only on the third attempt following two broken appointments in each case.

Le weekend

Triumph, Gift, Good News, Live report from Carnage and Crazy Grand Prix.

My weekend - we went to trendy upmarket 3 Monkeys at Herne Hill. We had already been to the Satay Bar where I had two Original Gin Slings. At the 3 Monkeys we had two bottles of a South African Chenin Blanc, and Irish coffee and Irish whiskey.

I would highly recommend the food and ambience at the restaurant. They messed up on our order, forgetting our starters, but gave us complementary ice-cream. We will be going back but at very little change from £100 it will be for a treat rather than because we fancy a curry!

Saturday we thought that if the weather was good we would go to Richmond, but then we realised that the Boat Race might get in the way. Instead we decided to go to Dulwich Park because neither of us has ever been. But, we lay in until 2 pm, and went off to Il Ponte (formerly Ferrari's) at Crystal Palace. I had a big big big tuna pizza, quarter of which is sitting in my fridge! Also a bottle of Chianti and three Irish coffees (each). Later, much snoring was audible from the sofa.

I didn't take any photos.

What is Success

This is inspired tangentially by other postings in the UK Blogosphere

All of us were children once, most of us with parent(s). Some of you are parents yourselves, or intending to be, eventually. Most of the rest are Aunts and Uncles, either by blood, or marriage (equivalent), or friendship.

All parents want their children to be happy and most want their children to be successful. From time to time, one reads articles that are almost self-parodying, about the anguish parents feel when picking schools for their children. Of course, they don't want their children to be bullied. But the main concern is that their child will have a decent education, which implies good GCSE/A-Level results, which, in turn, leads to a place at a good university. (There are close equivalents in other countries).

My background was two graduate professional parents who were very keen on academic success. All three of us did well at school. My sister's inability to believe that she did well at school reflects the ambition of the school. Parents and the school also encouraged career ambition. I am not saying that my parents hothoused us; far from it. I just absorbed at an early age that education was the gateway to choices in life.

Ask me during my teens what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would have told you one or more of the following: journalist; Radio presenter; novelist; lawyer; Prime Minister. I am none of those. The only one I'm likely to achieve now is novelist - and how likely is that?