How to fall in Sh*t and still smell of roses

No 3 son, Chris, has broken a bone in his hand - a metacarpel. He did it playing cricket in an ambitious attempt to stop overthrows. Everyone on the pitch heard the break and that was the end of his contribution to the match - there were two balls left and his team won easily. Luckily for Chris, his team included at least two doctors and one of these is a orthopedic specialist in the hospital closest to where the match was being played. So, Chris was transported to hospital, rushed to the front of the A&E queue, X-rayed, plastered, given his next appointments and finally brought home by this consultant. What a hero. When the NHS works like this, we should thank our lucky stars.

Chris has now reached the stage where the novelty has worn off and the pain is significant. A few Ibruprofen will be devoured this week, methinks.

Return Match

In an earlier post, I related that No. 3 son had delusions regarding his squash playing ability. Well, last evening he persuaded me to a return match. He is getting better, but I still managed to sneak a win by 5 games to 1.

The lesson that us oldies still know a thing or two is taking time to get through....

Father's Day

It is pleasing to report that my children all remembered Father's Day and rung me, or sent a card, and best of all, invested no money in presents. Their best wishes were all I could have wanted.

Looking forward to going home

We are approaching the end of our period here in Cornwall. I am looking forward to going home. There are undoubtably a load of jobs to do there.

Swimming in the Sea

Today after I finished with the kitchen drawers and connected the new cooker and did a load of other things, I was given leave to quit thinking about the kitchen in the Cornwall bungalow and spend an afternoon on the beach. So off to the beach I went. And lovely it was. The sun shone and the sea was a lovely turquoise blue. It looked so appealing that I could not resist a swim. And it was COLD! With a capital C.

In the stocks with him.

I see from the story here that the buffoon who seems destined to be our next monarch is interfering with the democratic process. This clown really must be told to go and play in the traffic while the rest of us try and run the country. Perhaps if his mother had spent a bit more time with him while he was a child, he would not be quite such an arse.

What a poor choice.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide which party I might want to vote for in any election. The Labour Party are a complete shower and in the words of Rowan Atkinson's reactionary "Father of the Bride" character, I would not trust them to sit on the toilet correctly. The Conservatives have not described any policies which lead me to believe that they have a coherent plan for running the country. The Liberal Democrats are committed to Europe and have in the past expounded a number of policies I found attractive, so would probably get my vote if an election was to be held next week. UKIP, The Greens, are not in the real world and the BNP are beyond the pale, so unless an independent stands, the LIb Dems will have to do.

Since voting seems to me to be a duty as well as a right, the choice seems to be the lesser of the evils, rather than a party that really attracts.

I very much hope (and fear) that I am not the only one who feels this way. What have we done to deserve the present collection of politicians. The answer may be that we just have not involved ourselves in the process enough and our apathy is now returning to bite us in the arse.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

I am almost ashamed to admit that I am totally fascinated by the machinations surrounding the Government reshuffle. Gordon Brown has a dogged determination that I sort of admire. Caroline Flint appears to have got it right when she says that he operates a two tier cabinet and James Purnell deserves respect for having the courage to say in plain English what loads of people must be thinking.

Having watched the BBC News24 channel for much of the afternoon, two people caught my eye. The first was Peter Mandelson whose performance made him look the most slimy and repulsive person on the planet - surely he will do more to turn voters off Labour than just about anyone else. Someone really should tell him that he comes across as totally insincere. The second person was Kate Hoey who, in contrast, made the most sensible statements in her interview with Jon Sopel. I really do wish more politicians were like her. She came across as pragmatic and sincere and with no little charm.

The whole performance of the reshuffle has made poor old GB look seriously weak and this wretched Government seems to be desperately clinging to power at all costs. The results of the council elections look very bad for Labour and with European election results on Sunday night, by Monday morning things may look very different again.

If the cabinet were running a company, they would find it very difficult to attract investors.

Vote for Europe.

Well today we can all go and cast our votes. It is desperately important that we do and I fear that the chaos surrounding MP's expenses will overshadow what we should be thinking about. Surely we can only exert our rightful level of influence from within the EU. We must be and remain at the centre of European decision making, so I urge all my readers (who am I deluding??) not to give any support to UKIP or the BNP.

Thank you.

We don't vote for a council here today, but it will be interesting to see if Labour MPs can summon up the will to cut loose the deadweight Gordon Brown if they do as badly as predicted in the council elections. If Labour gets a lower share of the vote than UKIP, then surely he is doomed.

What are they thinking about???

For a number of reasons (I need the exercise, this town is full of cars, parking is exorbitant, I'm way too impatient to walk....) I tend to cycle round the place. It is the case that the folk who live and work in this fine town have increasingly taken to walking around looking solely at the ground some 3 to 4 feet in front of their feet. I know this because in the last few days a number of them have caused me to stop on my bike and then they have only just failed to walk into me, and one lady actually managed it! There I was standing still, with my feet on the ground with my hands still on the handlebars and this numpty still walks into me because she is not looking where she is going. Sheeeesh!

The only cure I can think of is high voltage electric shock therapy. Wake up people or stay at home for the safety of the rest of us!