Things I've noticed

More accurately, this should be headed "things that have made me sit up and take notice). I've not been commuting recently, as "regular" readers of my blog will know (God, that sounds pretentious). My Paternity Leave, however, comes to end next Wednesday, and I'll be back on the rails come ten to eight on Wednesday morning. I'm not too upset by that fact (although I may feel differently come Tuesday evening) because I've had an incredibly precious month or so with my wife and newborn son. We had a bit of a scare when they both had to be admitted to hospital for a week, but that is now, thankfully, behind us and everything seems to be developing nicely. I have even done a bit of work from home in the last couple of weeks, helping out with a couple of tenders, which has helped me stay in touch.

A couple of things have happened in the last few weeks which have tickled me enough to want to record them, just in case they ever come in handy in future conversation or, dare I say it, writing. Firstly, I watched Question Time last night and there was some childish (as she had the good grace to confess) Tory woman called Louise Bigend, or something like that, going on about how this government is responsible for the collapse of civic society, yob culture, the sinking of the Titanic and generally everything. Nothing remarkable there, but what did tickle me was the way that Liam Fox (Dr Fox? Surely not! Somebody must ask him about his taste in music at some point) totally undermined her over the issue of 24-hour licensing laws. She was banging on about how Labour brought in the 24-hour laws and now they've got to admit they were wrong because lots of teenagers are carrying knives in Coventry (I think). He immediately shot her down in flames, saying that he thought it was much deeper than that, and blaming 24-hour lisences completely missed the point. Smashing!

Now, as far as I recall, one of the justifications for bringing in 24-hour lisences was that it would put an end to the spectacle of hordes of drunken pub-goers spilling out on to the streets en masse come closing time, thereby creating an inevitable flashpoint. Still, whoever heard of the Tories passing up an opportunity for cheap political point scoring? Later on in the pregramme, on the subject of the US presidential election, she announced grandly that her husband ("who is an American") will be voting for John MCain ("a real war hero) to which my immediate response was "If that's the criterion then presumably he also backed John Kerry?" Consistency? Pah! This is politics, after all.

The other thing that really made me laugh yesterday, believe it or not ,was a trip to the dentist. Actually, I have to admit that I'm terrified or my current dentist, but that's an issue for another day. Yesterday, I was having a couple of fillings put in, and she had just finished sticking needles into my gums, wrenched my jaw open as wide as it could possibly get, shaerpened her utentils, cracked her knuckles (I may have imagined that bit) and was just about ot get down to business when what should come on the radio but REM's "Everybody Hurts". Laugh? I very nearly did, with potentially serious consequences.