Swans, Sherbet and Coathangers

Here we go then! The van is stuffed full of chocolate, marshmallows, popcorn, fizzy drinks, and all manner of other goodies. Apparently the idea is to get the children as hyperactive as possible, really wind them up, and then... send them home with their parents! Job done. We're getting them to do sailing, canoeing, archery and fencing, and we're going to have a movie night featuring the Wallace and Gromit film. I can't wait!

See you Monday.

It's lies, all lies! Britain's roadworks are the best?? What does that even mean?!

BBC News reports that an AA Trust survey has declared Britain's motorway roadworks to be the best in the whole of Europe. I'm stunned. When was the last time you sat in a ten mile tailback, thinking "Fantastic. I've been held up by some roadworks in my time, but these ones really are outstanding." If you're sadistic enough to want to experience truly terrible roadworks, then apparently you need to go to Croatia.

It's truth, all truth! I'm really rather enjoying the Kids Club at the moment. Last night, as well as the obligatory football, there was a much broader range of things for the kids to get involved with. They could glue their fingers together at the craft table, or leap about in front of the Eye Toy (which is THIS). There are few things funnier than watching a 'responsible' leader flailing away at thin air in an attempt to punch a virtual boxer on a screen. I personally got floored more times than I care to admit.

Cheer up Richard Hammond. He's now been airlifted to a hospital closer to his home, but if that wasn't enough, he was also serenaded by the Thundersley brass band, who decided on the spur of the moment to go and play outside his hospital window. There was no escape! And what tune did they select? 'Is This The Way To Amarillo?'. Er... yes. That'll aid recovery.

I really, really think I need one of these.

People are never on time for anything any more, it seems. Unless it's something like a film, people will happily add upwards of thirty minutes onto any time that they have been told to arrive. I'm definitely guilty of this too. I mean, I don't want to be the first to arrive, do I! So I'm forced to be late. Yes, that's what it is...

In other news, the weekend has flown by in a whirl of sushi and bouncy castles. Now I know how it feels to be a fairgound skivvy, battling against parents who are determined to sneak their precious offspring onto the bouncy castle without paying, or who suddenly become a deaf-mute when you ask them to remove their sprog because their time has expired. What should be an enjoyble bit of fun becomes a sinister battle of wills! At least the sun was shining.

It was fantastic to have some Japanese food last friday. It really took me back to my time in Japan. I even got to sit on a big long table with total strangers, in the traditional style.

I'm still waiting to see the film An Inconvenient Truth, written and presented by the charismatic and not even slightly unexciting Al Gore. The reason I have been delaying is the knowledge that this film will almost certainly make me feel guilty and depressed. However, there is heartening news. It may all be someone else's fault after all! (Not really of course, but go with me on this...) As I have long suspected, it is in fact the cows that are the evil and irresponsible wreckers of our planet. In Ireland and New Zealand in particular, about a third of their carbon dioxide emissions is the fault of the farmers' cows burping and farting too much. You may have thought that our government was stupid, but over in New Zealand they are so worried about gassy cows that they've imposed a flatulence tax! The response from the farmers has been to set up a campaign called F.A.R.T. (Farmers Against Ridiculous Taxation). This is all true. God bless you, New Zealand.

If you've shopped in any of the bigger Tesco stores in recent months, you may have seen some new 'self service' tills that they have set up. The idea is that you can scan your own items and pay for them without having to interact with a cashier. What a great idea! NO. I found myself in one of the monstrous Tesco Extra stores yesterday and, even though I hadn't found what I was looking for, I still felt obliged to buy something (damn you Tesco!). I went for an individual carrot cake slice (89p), and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try out the 'future of shopping'. Firstly, the item wouldn't scan so I had to tap in the handy 20 digit product code. Next, you have to place your item in the bagging area, but the cake weighed so little that it wouldn't register. Finally, I inserted a £2 coin for payment and the machine swallowed it whole and asked for more money!!    I called for help, but the assistant looked at me incredulously, as if I was trying to swindle Tesco out of a carrot cake. I turned to the ladies behind me for confirmation that I had indeed paid, but they suddenly lost the ability to speak English. The cashier silently and angrily dragged me over to a different till to give me my change, but she made it quite clear that she thought I was a thief, and no better than a dog turd on her shoe. So that's progress for you! The future of shopping is here.

Today, in the fair city of Cardiff, it is 'In the town centre without your car' day.
It took me ten minutes to turn out of my own road this morning! This has to be, on balance, one of the worst environmentally friendly campaigns I have ever witnessed. If it was the same story in the town centre itself (and it must have been, for the traffic queues to have been backed up all the way into the suburbs!), then the council may as well have filled the ornamental fountains with petrol and set fire to them. Possibly...

Anyway, I wasn't in the best of moods upon my arrival in the office, and this has not been enhanced by having the radio tuned in to the Ryder Cup Golf. I like golf a lot, but it just doesn't work on the radio. That's my opinion of all sport on the radio. For it to be exciting, you need to have the pictures as well, surely!

"That was an amazing goal!"
"Well, it may have been, but I can't sodding see it can I!"

My first fumbling attempts at the game of golf occurred on a small par 3 course at Center Parcs. I began in the practice nets, and immediately developed an unrivalled talent for slicing the ball sharply off to the left. Thus it was that I spent three hours in drizzling rain, trying to hack a succession of golf balls out of many an inpenetrable forest. If there was so much as a small puddle on the course, I found it. Peculiarly, it's afternoons such as this that can only enhance your enjoyment of the game. One good shot, and you're hooked. Or in my case, sliced.

It has been said many times before, but the MOBO music awards are a strange phenomenon. They were set up to dish out prizes to MOBO, i.e. Music Of Black Origin. Now, correct me if I'm wrong (and I often am), but in my mind MOBO actually covers 99.9% of current popular music, because a great many styles of modern music stem originally from the blues and so on. However, the MOBO awards certainly do not reflect 99.9% of current popular music. So what's going on here? Would it be incorrect to say that they are actually the Music Made By Black People awards? Which is all well and good because they are a talented bunch, but I don't think that we would ever be able to set up a rival award ceremony called The Whiteys, somehow.

Last night I ended up doing something I never thought would happen to me. Football coaching. That's right, actual football (which is suprising enough), along with some actual coaching! I was rubbish of course, but it was funny watching some of my fellow coaches getting carried away and mowing down a bunch of nine year olds. This was followed by a 'see ya later' meal for Feesey, as his drags himself back to Nottingham.

Poor old Richard Hammond. It looks like his need for speed has finally been his undoing. I hope he recovers swiftly, but will he ever want to get in a fast car again? More to the point, will the BBC ever allow one of their stars to strap themselves into a car that's jet propelled?!

A date has finally been set when a smoking ban will come into force across Wales.

I've never got along with smoking. This isn't a dig at the smokers at all (well okay, maybe it is...), but frankly those little sticks of tobacco are disgusting. They're full of 'special ingredients' that could never possibly be good for you, including tar. Come on, they use that stuff to make roads!

I can remember trying it for the first time at school, and really being aware of my lungs for the first time. It was painful. A second attempt, under pressure from friends, caused a massive coughing fit. An ill-advised third and final attempt brought me to the point of physical sickness. Never again!

You could argue, of course, that this is an affront to our civil liberties. We can't be told what to do like this! It could get ridiculous. Everyone agrees that alcohol can be every bit as harmful, so that'll be banned next. Eventually we'll all be sat in pubs, drinking lemonade, in silence, so that nobody runs the risk of being offended by our idle chatter. That's the future - no alcohol, no smoking, no talking.

So there you have it. If you're a non-smoker in Wales, it's good news. If you're a smoker, there's never been a better time to give up.

Let me tell you a little bit about my new friend in Africa, the World Vision Kid. Well, I say the World Vision Kid, but that makes him sound a bit like he wanders the plains of Africa dishing out confectionary, which of course he doesn't. He does have a proper name, but I'm afraid I can't quite remember what it is or how to spell it, and I can't be bothered to dig out the information right now, so I'll go with his middle name, which is the very easy to remember Peter!

Peter is 9 years old, and lives in Kenya. His favourite thing in the whole world is football. So, that's me screwed then! We aren't going to get along at all, are we. There are many sports that I enjoy, but football isn't one of them (too many afternoons spent freezing my bits off in the rain, being yelled at by sadistic P.E. teachers). If I write, I could try to impress with my climbing credentials, but I guess I'll also be brushing up on my Aston Villa knowledge, nominal fan that I am! At least I've seen them play a match. How many die hard football fans are there in the world, who have never actually seen their team play? Come on, own up...

So, that was the weekend then. Not vintage by any means, but also not without its moments.

I had the house to myself, and was planning a nice quiet one. You know, the kind of weekend where you can throw off your pants and prance around in the altogether without fear of recrimination. If that's your kind of thing...

Anyway, my peace was interrupted firstly by Mr Feesey, who found himself stuck somewhere in the home counties, worried that he was unable to complete his train journey to Uckfield. He called me from a station platform somewhere near Reading, and I don't know if he ever made it or not!

Second 'disturber of the peace' was Fiona, who wanted to pop round for tea on Saturday. So she did! We had takeway and watched a DVD, and it was actually quite nice to have some company in the end.

The rest of the weekend has been taken up with playing the Playstation game that Jason gave me for my birthday, 'We Love Katamari'. It's brilliant! Very odd, and very Japanese. All you do is roll up stuff (anything from food, to furniture, to pets, to people!). The bigger your ball of stuff, the more things you can roll up. And that's it! My explanation doesn't do it justice at all, but if you want to get a feel for the game style, and see for yourself just how weird it is, I heartily recommend that you follow this link to YouTube and take a look!
This is the game introduction.

How much should we, as a nation, be paying to defend ourselves from foreign attack? And is it okay for part of our defense systems to be... a little bit nuclear? The reason I ask is that I read an article yesterday by a woman who used to be an advisor to Hans Blix (he of the 'Weapons of mass distruction? Where??' fame). She was discussing the imminent renewal/replacement of the UK government's nuclear weapons system. One thing struck me immediately - it's really rather expensive. How much? Oh, approximately £25-40 billion. Yup, billion. That, as Jamie Oliver would be quick to tell you, pays for an awful lot of nutritious school dinners (not that any kids would eat them. They want fat in their diet! How about forming some mechanically reclaimed chicken into the shape of a nuclear warhead? In breadcrumbs, of course...) £25 billion would pay for a great many things. How can the government possibly believe that this is money well spent? I suppose that, in ten years time, as I sit here enjoying my first nuclear winter, I may come to appreciate their wisdom. Meanwhile though, I really wish they would consider using this money on things other than bombs!

So, I have just sent off my application to sponsor a child through World Vision. They give you a great big list of African countries you can choose from, but that made me feel a bit like I was shopping, so I just ticked the box for 'wherever the need is great'. Makes me feel like a comic book hero instead!  It was reassuring to read that should I need to stop my donations for any reason, the child will continue to get sponsorship from some kind of reserve fund. They won't be cast straight back into poverty! Or worse, made to appear in films with Bob Geldof.

I have another form with me, which is to sign up for a course in writing! Novels, and short stories. It will serve no particular purpose, but it sounds fun, and will help me improve one of the things I like doing most, i.e. writing twaddle.

The final form on my pen-wielding radar is one of these blasted 'CRB checks'. For those unfamiliar with the delights of the CRB (Criminal Records Bureau), every time you take on a role involving working with children, you have to apply for a disclosure of your criminal record. I have two such disclosures already, but when I start helping out at a new after school club next week, I need to do yet another one! You can't just use one of the disclosures you already have. It's a stupid, stupid system.

Last night when I was round at Em & Matt's house the conversation turned, as it sometimes does, to churches - why people leave them, and why they get stuck in a rut. At the moment, I'm reading a little 'thought for the day' book every morning. Here's today's thought: "In order to get fit, both physically and spiritually, you can't just sit down and read a manual. Eventually, you will have to get up off your backside and do something."

It is now about a week after my birthday, and usually at this point the cry goes up from my mother, "Have you done your thankyou letters yet?"

Even as a small infant, these things have been the bane of my life. It shouldn't be a hard thing should it, saying thanks for getting stuff you haven't earned, but it was the soul destroying monotony of these wretched letters that always got to me! I refuse to believe that the hapless recipients of those 'gratitude essays' actually enjoyed reading them! It was always the same. 1) Say how much you love what you've been given, even if you don't. 2) Impart some piece of interesting 'news'. 3) Sign off in some meaningless or twee way. It was just about bearable doing this for my relatives, but dear mum used to make me do this for all my schoolfriends too! After every birthday party, I used to have to go to school and dole out these exciting creations. As we all got older, my friends would become increasingly bemused. "Why can't you just say it to my face?" Eventually, they'd just take a cricket bat to me. (Not really, but they'd certainly give me a verbal lashing, and I don't blame them at all!)

This year though, for the first time ever... nothing. Not a peep! Am I finally a big boy now?! But I'll still do them of course. Habits are very hard to break.

Last night, I made a great big pecan pie. It is a magnificent specimen. I wanted to donate it to the Tate, but after a brief phone call, I was saddened to discover that they "are unable to accept puddings".

I'm feeling terribly embarrassed, but I have to confess that I quite like the new Pussycat Dolls track. I don't know why. It's very 80s, and yet it tugs away at the brain, like a fishing hook that's been carelessly inserted through the left ear. Normally I'd rate them roughly on a par with McFly, which is to say they're garbage. Oh well!

Colonel Gaddafi - he's a slightly strange fellow, isn't he. Apparently, he's just claimed that Coca Cola is African, being made predominantly from African plants, and therefore he is entitled to a share of all their profits. He reminds me a little bit of the character from the asian sketch show 'Goodness Gracious Me', who is convinced that everyone and everything on the planet is Indian. "Superman - Indian!" Gaddafi, remember, is the man who remains convinced that Shakespeare was an Arab.

Had a very good housegroup last night. We spent some time filming a sketch invloving a wedding scene, and I went and chipped one of Keren's expensive-looking wine glasses.

This is a test post, using the new 'Blog.co.uk'! Actual stuff will start to be written here soon. What I'm doing is moving blog hosts. My blog is currently with MSN spaces, but I don't like the fact that people can only post a comment there if they have an MSN account! Cheeky. Anyway, at the moment you can go look HERE, and see what I'm all about.

I look forward to being in residence on these pages full time in the near future! As soon as I've had time to move everything over...

Lorenzo