Such has been my blog-writer’s-block in recent weeks that it required something really special to force me back into the writing habit. It came this cold Sunday morning in the form (not surprisingly) of the Right Honourable Geoffrey William Hoon, Member of Parliament for Ashfield and Leader of the House of Commons, talking about education on BBC TV. Asked by Andrew Marr about the number of Labour MPs who might be expected to offer immediate support for the new education reforms, Mr Hoon replied with the normal politician’s workaround: Labour has apparently doubled expenditure on education in its term of office; there are thirty thousand new teachers and, supporting them, one hundred and thirty-eight thousand new administrative staff. Whaaaaaat? I must have misheard – I’ll have to have the ears syringed again!
There has been so much to blog about recently that you have missed my musings on many subjects. So like enacting the works of Shakespeare in an hour long radio drama, I’ll list some of the subjects I have intended to blog about, but failed to so.
- Cameron –
My Mum says “Cameron”. The wife says “Cameron”. Who am I to argue?
- Alastair Cook (not Cooke)
Well done
- Cheese and Supermarkets
How unsurprising that a supermarket can boast a range of over 150 different cheeses including many “small farm” items by ordering from just a handful of suppliers – Altria (Kraft), Lactel (President, etc.), Dairy Crest (St Ivel, Cathedral City, etc.) and one or two other megacorps.
- Sudoku Etiquette
“Bollocks!” intoned the younger brother when I told him that members of my family keep telling me off for pencilling possible numbers and connections onto my Sudoku puzzle. Sudoku is meant to train the brain, so you should keep all those marginal notes in your head and only enter “assured” numbers on the grid, not scrawl in the corners of the squares. Seeing that there is so much Sudoku merchandise in the shops this Christmas I have it in mind to find the younger brother a roll of Sudoku (Times-Killer-Fiendish) loo paper for Christmas.
- All Blacks
I was proud of
- Tony Blair
Now that he is being written off I have (finally) come to approve of him as a Prime Minister. He seems to be taking on major issues with great courage, usually confronting his stupid colleagues head-on regarding policies on health, education, terrorism, etc. Bravo!
- Bird Flu
The bantams have been giving me strange looks recently, and a small robin is trying to nest in our bedroom (totally ignored by the cat). I think vaccinations are called for.
