Just a quick one today, as I'm imminently off to sunny Southampton. I'm helping to run two events tomorrow, but tonight I'm going to be on my own, and thus need to amuse myself while stuck in a Travel Inn at a motorway service station on the M27. Perhaps I'll resort to Bedroom Olympics, using the furniture in the room to compete against myself in a number of exciting events. These might include hurdles, long jump, high jump, or even swimming races in the bath.

I'll let you know if I broke any records on Friday.

It was a sunny morning, and I was on holiday from school. In fact, I was staying at my Grandparents' house, curled up in an extremely comfortable bed and putting off the inevitable for as long as possible. I remember my mum shaking my shoulder, the usual tactic to make sure I was awake. Something was a bit different though. "Good morning" was followed by "oh, and Princess Diana's dead."

I think my initial reaction was "...and?", which on reflection was possibly a little heartless, but also sums up my feelings about that whole period when the nation reacted in such a surprising fashion. People went to London. They laid a massive carpet of flowers. They shed tears for a woman they had never even met. Why?

I went to see the film The Queen last night. It's a great film which looks in particular at the reaction of the Royal Family to Diana's death, and their struggle to disengage with royal protocol in order to show the British public that they cared. I don't think they did, on the whole, and neither did I really. Diana seemed a decent enough person, but I never knew her, so why should I grieve? Millions decided they needed to, though.

Helen Mirren deserved her Oscar gong, but I suspect she received the nomination in the first place more becuase the Americans love our royal family than because they actually enjoyed the film!

I still don't understand football. Not really, anyway.

I can see that there are bursts of excitement when players use their not inconsiderable skills to do something good with a bouncy ball, but... it just goes on too long! Who needs to sit through 90 minutes? Forty should be plenty, and that way the teams could play several matches in an evening and the whole season would be over inside eight weeks. Nowadays, there's hardly a time when it isn't the football season.

On Friday night I went along to Cardiff City's stadium with Girlfriend and Girlfriend's Mother, who are both diehard Preston fans. We therefore took our seats in the away end, which was quite an experience. The away stand has a flimsy net curtain splitting it in half, with one side reserved for the away fans, and the other side reserved for a slobbering pack of extremely vociferous Cardiff supporters. As the match progressed, there was a smattering of 'banter' drifting back and forth through the net. For example if the Preston fans decided to declare that, with respect, the Cardiff City supporters' singing was a pile of w**k, then that would be countered with a detailed description of what the Cardiff fans would like to do to the Preston fans, with particular reference to hospitals and ambulances. In a friendly, fun way of course! As it happened, Preston ended up getting stuffed 4-1, which was quite entertaining as it involved two penalties in quick succession. I can't wait for my next football match now! But I will insist on being a HOME fan.

Horrorscopes - harmless fun? I can remember, back in my teens, enthusiastically reading the small paragraphs in the paper that would outline in deliberately vague terms what the week held in store for me. Here's a quick example from today's Telegraph:

"With your ruler Mercury travelling backwards through the area of your skies that rules your closest bonds, this is not the time to ask for favours or confide in another. The position you are in is stronger than you think, so relax and concentrate on social life until the planetary pattern changes. You could soon start to see your options in a different light."

Splendid stuff. There always seems to be something positive to glean from them. They're all rubbish of course, but I have to admire how cleverly they are written. Take the example above. I expect that there are plenty of people who were planning to ask a favour of someone in the coming week. Don't do it, people! DON'T! (No go on, you can really...)

Horrorscopes can be dangerous though. Steve Wright's excellent radio 2 show is let down for me because of the fact that he insists on wheeling out these dreadful astrologers to give advice to listeners over the phone. People call in wanting to know if they should quit a job, end a relationship, move house... and so on. These are big questions with no easy answers, and I find it sad that people will genuinely believe that the positions of the moon and planets holds the key. Please, please stop it!

Go Harry-Hewitt, go!

Jog on!

I thoroughly enjoyed 'Hot Fuzz' last night, despite a couple of warnings that the last third of the film descends into one long gun fight (which is true). It was great to see the Shaun Of The Dead team back together for some more feature-length silliness, and the roster of major stars who want a piece of the action, even if it's just the tiniest of cameos, seems to grow and grow. It's very obvious that they all loved making this film.

After the film, panic ensued as several dozen people tried to leave the multi storey car park next to the cinema. And couldn't. All of the pay stations were broken, and so the barriers across the exit were behaving like my attempt at souffles - refusing to rise under any circumstances. Initially, no NCP staff member could be found, and the suggestion that somebody ram one of the barriers with their car was not met with an enthusiastic response. Just as we were mobilising ourselves to try and escape through the entrance without paying, some moron from NCP Central finally answered the intercom. It took this person a full five minutes to grasp that there was an angry mob trapped in the car park, but eventually (and after several cries of 'I'm sorry, but what do you want?), the barrier went up. Another few minutes and there may have been some actual vandalism.

So, Prince Harry-Hewitt is off to Iraq. Good! Bye then.

This coming Friday, I'll be doing something that I have done only a couple of times before in my life. I will be attending... a football match! A proper one, between teams who are paid actual money to punt a leather sack from one end of a freshly mown lawn to the other. And here's the twist - I'm going to be an away fan. Although I live in Cardiff, and will be going to watch the match in Cardiff, my dear girlfriend and her mother are diehard Preston fans, so I will be taking a seat at the Preston end. I think that means I can look forward to a certian amount of 'light-hearted' abuse, from both the Cardiff fans in the stadium and the Cardiff fans back at the office, once they get to hear about it! I'm looking forward to it though. It should be highly entertaining to see who wins.

Is road pricing a good idea? Yes, possibly. I'd like to see a lot more information before I could stick my neck out and say I'm for it, but right now it's very clear that the roads can't get any more congested. As long as a) petrol prices came down and b) car tax was either massively reduced or scrapped, then road tolls could work, if the government gets the pricing exactly right. If they devise a system which makes me ask 'Do I really need to use the car?' every time I went out, then that's got to be a positive thing. There will of course be winners and losers, but let's not end up with a road network where everyone's a loser because of total gridlock.

'The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.'

And so it proved to be at the staff bowling tournament last night. Poor old Richard, who could usually look forward to a comfortable last place accompanied by a barrage of commiserating pats on the back, suddenly found himself thrust into the lead as his first five goes elicited:
spare - spare - strike - strike - strike !!
Thus, for that wonderful Turkey (three strikes in a row) he has earned himself the new name of Bernard Matthews. Last place was reserved for... me.

If you want to try and work out America's intentions when it comes to bombing Iran, I think the best thing to do is monitor how strenuously they deny having any intention to bomb Iran. It was the same with Iraq, really. Repeated denial was followed by, surprise surprise, a bombing campaign. Also, they try to distract us by highlighting the 'diplomatic efforts'. With Iraq, it was the UN weapons inspectors. With Iran, I think there will be much talk of sanctions. So, can we look forward to regime change in Iran? Absolutely. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a ridiculously hard name for Bush to pronounce. He wants a president with a name that's much easier to say!

These may look like Cola bottles, but unbelievably they're feet! They belong to the young girl Amillia, who recently hit the news for being born after just 22 weeks, weighing 284 grams. She's a lot bigger now, and has been allowed home.

Taking your car into a garage is always a calculated risk. How much do you really know about the inner workings of an engine? How much, more to the point, will your mechanic try to sting you for?

Upon arrival, the absolute worst thing you can say is "I think it's broken." You may as well open your wallet and cry "Go on, help yourself!" My current favourite tactic is to say "I think it might be the exhaust", even if it clearly isn't. That way, they seem less inclined to suck air through their teeth and rattle off a list of expensive parts that need replacing.

Fear. That's a mechanic's greatest weapon. Nobody wants their engine to fall out in the middle of the dual carriageway, do they. All it takes is one phone call saying "I'm sorry Mr Shone, but your Flippertygiblet has gone all sprongly", and I'm quite happy to write a massive cheque, nodding vigorously as I do so. Mind you, I do feel that I have a reasonalbly trusting relationship with my mechanic. So is it just human nature that stops us from eliminating those last few grains of suspicion?

Tonight, it's time for more staff bowling. Will anyone beat the boss? Er... no. Probably not.

POST 100!!

Come on in and have some cake, why don't you! I'm feeling oddly accomplished, like a fully potty-trained toddler. I didn't think I'd even get half way to 100...

I hope that everyone had a lovely valentine's day on Wednesday. Or, if you're dead against such nonsense, I hope you enjoyed railing against it, complaining about what a commercialised pile of rubbish it is, and how you don't need a greetings card company to tell you how or when to be romantic. Or, if you had a 'friends' day, I hope you enjoyed that too. OR, if it happened to be your daughter's first birthday, I hope that was great! (Hmmm. A little specific, that one...) You may even have celebrated St Skeletor's Day.

In a collective effort to be a happier, greener planet, cycling may have to be the way forward. We should all hop on our bicycles, pedal furiously, and nurture some wonderful saddle sores. That's the plan anyway, but a sizeable part of me is actually hoping that cyclists don't take over. They're just so rude! As I discovered this morning, traffic signals mean nothing to these people. The guy in front of me (who also managed to spit on my bonnet, but that's another issue...) swerved all over the road at red lights, mounting pavements, terrorizing school children, and generally being a danger to everyone, not least to himself. I kept catching him up, and was thus a witness to all his time-saving schemes, which got ever grander and more evil as we progressed along the street. I can't tell you how tempting it was to squirt him with windscreen washer as I squeezed past him for about the fifth time. Come on, cyclists. If you're going to be on the road, please obey the same rules as the rest of us!

The weekend is oh so close. Hurrah! I'm going out for a meal with Fi and her aunt tonight, and then out again with Pippa, Martin and chums tomorrow.

And inevitably, I'll be back on Monday for blog post number 101.

For better or worse, we all have teachers we remember. That was one of the main themes behind the fantastic west end play 'The History Boys', which I took Fi to see last night. It was shot through with northern humour, but was very moving too as various characters discovered harsh consequences to what they would consider to be innocent actions. Hektor, for example, was a bit of a maverick teacher and just wanted to be remembered, while at the same time thought nothing of fumbling with his favourite pupils' genitals as they rode pillion on his motorbike. The headmaster was unwittingly ruining his pupils' education at the expense of assessments, league tables, and an obsession with Oxford. It was just a brilliantly written, very funny play. Go see it if you can.

Earlier in the day we went to the Science Museum to give their IMAX cinema a go. WOW! I'd heard that they were big, but they FILL your vision. On top of that, the film was in 3D so we had lions, elephants and giraffes virtually in our lap!

It was an awesome trip, and more than makes up for 25 years of terrible valentines days!!

Over dinner last night, the conversation turned to words, and specifically the possibility that words can be removed from the dictionary if the O.E.D. receives enough written requests. Can this possibly be true?! If enough people felt that the word 'juxtaposition' was unnecessary, for example, would it then be taken away?

We were wondering if the dictionary works the other way round too. Obviously if words drift into common useage, then eventually you will find them in there. But, if you just made up a word and got a few thousand of your best friends to write to the dictionary people, would they feel obliged to include it? Therefore, we felt it was time for some new words to be invented. We came up with Funch, and Twank. We don't really know what they mean, but they should definitely be in the dictionary!

There won't be a blog entry tomorrow. Big plans are afoot. I can't wait!

On Friday lunchtime, I sprinted out of the office and straight into a major traffic jam. It would seem that everyone in the Cardiff area was let out of work at the same time, and many of my colleagues had a two hour crawl to travel 5 miles home! It's a common cry, but why is it that this great nation of ours is completely unable to handle an inch and a half of snow? All schools and businesses shut! I went into the supermarket, and people were panic-buying tinned spaghetti hoops.

My trip to Viney Hill was postponed until Saturday, but was fantastic once we got there. The centre had organised some Quarry Scrambling for us, which is just an excuse to be a big kid and throw yourself down muddy slopes. I've never been filthier - there was even mud in my pants after we'd finished.

Today's Guardian website features a particularly scathing article about 'Dr' Gillian McKeith, following reports that from today she is legally required to stop calling herself a Doctor. False advertising, you see! The writer of the article goes as far as calling her a menace to science! Brilliant. She claims to be a member of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, only available to those with a PhD. However, the writer managed to legitimately purchase the same membership online for $60. But not for him, oh no. He bought it for his cat. His cat is called Hettie. His cat is dead.

Gillian McKeith, you have the same qualification in nutrition as Ben Goldacre's dead cat Hettie!

Oh the excitement! Word has come round the office that we can all go home. The snow is falling at an industrious rate, and therefore there's currently a mad scramble for the car park exit.

Just a short entry for today, then. I'm supposed to be off to Viney Hill for the weekend, but I think the weather may have other ideas.

So, what am I waiting for?
GO GO GO!!

So, having seen the Walmart film last night, here's some of the alleged highlights (see the word I used there, nice Mr. Lawyer? ).

*Walmart drives out local business, destroying communities.
*Walmart pays their employees a ridiculously low wage.
*They deliberately under-staff their stores.
*They force employees to work unpaid overtime.
*They use illegal immigrants to clean their stores.
*They don't provide employees with adequate health insurance, instead suggesting that employees use state health aid plans (i.e., American tax payers pay for Walmart healthcare).
*Walmart receives huge government subsidies, for no apparent reason, that would be better spent on local schools and hospitals.
*Walmart has a major problem with crime in their parking lots, but refuses to impliment basic security patrols.
*They massively pollute the environment.
*They discriminate against women and black people.
*They do not allow unions, and will take aggressive action against any employees trying to start one.
*They have much of their merchandise made in sweat shops in China and India (employees over there work 12 hour shifts before going 'home' to live in cramped, dirty dormitories. The rent comes out of their non-existent wages).
*Walmart is owned by a billionaire family that gives virtually nothing to charity (Bill Gates, by contrast, gives nearly half his yearly earnings to charity).

...and much, much more! I'm sure that there are many other companies in America doing these kinds of things, it is just that Walmart appears to be the worst of a bad bunch.

Snow's gone! At least, it's well on the way out. Everything was beautiful and enchanting this morning, but now all has turned to slush. That's it for another year then, folks!

Hopefully tonight I'm going to be off to see the film 'Walmart - The High Cost Of Low Prices'. I'm particularly keen to see it because I think it will present a revealing snapshot of where Tesco is likely to be in a few years time, as they are the nearest British equivalent to Walmart. Asda can't be too far behind, mind you.

I feel like a fraud though, because I know full well I'll carry on using big supermarkets for as long as they remain affordable and convenient. Damn them! I'm trying to change though, a little at a time. If you happen to live in the south Wales area (and lets face it, someone has to), I can definitely reccommend these weekly vegetables to your door.

Is there going to be snow tomorrow, or not? I thought there was, but the BBC forecast has now downgraded Wales from Snow to Irritating Slush. I was hoping against hope for a day off tomorrow! Even if I had to create my own snowdrift around the car.

Valentines Day is approaching fast, and for once I can't wait. In previous years it has been a studied exercise in avoiding shops, television, public places and, to be frank, people. This ensured a complete V.D. blackout (VD - what an unfortunate acronym). This year though, it all changes. I'm still going to attempt to make it as un-commercial as possible. I won't be buying anything with a huge VD markup, and may even make my own card! (Note - I probably won't be making my own card...). I can't give away any more details right now. It's all very hush-hush. But, I am throwing everything at it this year, so I don't have to bother next year.

Pizza. The food of kings. Silencer of the tummy rumbles. Simple, yet elegant and delicious. How could it possibly be improved upon? Surprisingly, the answer is to crack an egg on it. In a fit of wild experimentation, I tried it at Fi's last night. She stared at me, as if to say "No! You can't!" And yet, the voice in my head instructed me to proceed! It wasn't half bad either.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but there's something brilliant on the world wide cobweb called the Music Genome Project. It looks objectively at thousands of songs, ignoring the genres completely, but instead examining the hundreds of components, or 'musical genes' of a song. It all sounds a bit geeky, but it's fantastic! They have a program called Pandora which talks to you, asking you about the bands/ songs you like and makes brand new suggestions for you to listen to right there and then. [U.K. people - they ask for a zipcode to confirm you live in America, for weird copyright reasons. Therefore, I now live in Beverley Hills 90210. It seems to work. ]

In other news, the weekend trip to Reading to see Jo was great. We all went out for a chinese meal on Saturday evening, and part way through, Jo grabbed the phone of her friend Phil. Being a curious sort of person, she sometimes does this to browse the texts or photos of other people. A wee bit cheeky, you may be thinking, but on this occasion she found herself staring at photos of Phil's willy, as taken by his wife! Needless to say she dropped the phone quite quickly. I think there may be a lesson there...

My teeth are worrying me. Every night they sit me down and read me headlines from the Dail Mail... OR, one or two of them seem to be playing up. They're teenager teeth - generally being a bit of a pain. It's not excruciating by any means, but sweet foods or extreme temperatures cause them to go "Ow! Ow!" Are they just being a bit sensitive? I've been noticing it more and more. But frankly the last thing I want right now is a long session in a dentists chair, thanks very much. Besides, my dentist (who is usually excellent) gave me the all clear less than two months ago.

In other news, a new report out today by special 'environmental scientists' has concluded that global warming is very probably our fault.
*slow hand clap*
Well done you crazy scientist guys! Good job! For what it's worth, you can have a look through it HERE. (Warning: Big Words)

I'm off to Reading tomorrow. Whoop whoop! It's been a while. Look out, Hampshire. Or Berkshire.

Last night, after playing playdough-related games with the little 'uns at Kids Club (how fantastic is playdough, by the way? The feeling, the smell...), I headed out with Fi to see Dreamgirls at the cinema. After a blistering opening section full of amazing music, the film settled down into an entirely predictable plot with way too many songs shoved in along the way. Seriously, although this is only a 2 hour film, it felt much closer to 3 for me.

First there was the Ray Charles story, and then we had the film about Johnny Cash, and now we have this! It's not about anyone specific, but treads some particularly well worn ground. I must just quickly mention Jennifer Hudson though. What a performance - what a voice! Her lung power pinned me back into my seat several times.

This is a great piece of writing. It packs a particularly emotional punch, given that it is written by an American.