6^th January 2009

And still the cold snap continues. I went so far as to wear a vest 3 times last week – I haven’t worn one 3 times in the past ten years – and still my bones watered from the chill. I know it is winter and people keep telling me that the countryside needs the cold to sort out lurking germs, but I just long for a bit of warmth. Never mind, only twelve days to go. I have started counting now!

As the Government presses ahead with its ridiculously expensive and utterly useless ID cards scheme, the year seems to have started with a glut of stories about adults having to prove their age in public places.

We've had grown men and women refused fireworks because they couldn't prove they were over 18, and the Explosives Act invoked to stop a 22-year-old buying Christmas crackers. We've heard of a shop assistant who wouldn't sell wine to a 28-year-old woman because she didn't have a passport or driving licence with her and a forty year old mother of two who had the same problem when buying beer.

Now we learn of a 20-year-old receptionist told she couldn't buy knitting needles because they could be considered offensive weapons and she wasn't over 21. But perhaps the most ridiculous is the story of  the 30-year-old woman from Leeds who was asked to prove she was over 18 before Morrisons would sell her a chunk of whisky-infused cheddar cheese.

A po-faced Morrisons spokesman said: 'We take our responsibilities very seriously.'

Where do they find these people? Who ever heard of someone getting legless on a truckle of cheddar?

Life in modern Britain does get even more stupid though. Now we have children at a primary school being taught how to blow their noses. The youngsters, aged between five and 11, are first shown a DVD which tells them what to do when they have a cold. They are then asked to discuss their 'feelings' on hygiene and are encouraged to look at a Kleenex-sponsored website, Sneezesafe, at home with their parents.

The site is designed to help children understand how germs are spread and ways in which they can stop it from happening.

One parent, whose child attends Broad Oak Primary School in Manchester, called the exercise 'a complete waste of time'.

The parent, who did not wish to be named, added: “I send my kids to school to learn, not for someone to show them how to blow their nose.

'My son said, 'Everyone knows how to blow their nose, we know to use a hanky not our sleeve.'”

Never mind Sonny, Gorbals Gordon – I wonder if I might rechristen him Gormless Gordon as he really does seem to be losing it – is really conc erned for your welfare. He probably feels that if he promotes enough of these witless schemes, people will forget about the absolute horlicks he is making of the economy and the lives of ordinary people.

Mind you, he isn’t alone. It seems that most MPs in this benighited country are well and truly on the gravy train and milking the rest of us for whatever they can get.

Freedom of information requests by the London Evening Standard last week found that 24 parliamentary committees made trips which cost the taxpayer a total of £1,418,280 in the last financial year.

The MPs, from all the major parties, had travel and accommodation bills paid and received cash to cover meals and local fares. There is no need to submit receipts - or to return unused allowances. These blokes really do have all the angles covered yet they would pass out with shock if they were to be accused of basic corruption. They already receive salaries of £63,291 and expenses and allowances worth thousands more yet still they want more and more and more.

One team from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee went on a £63,188 fact finding tour for the London Olympics to Ottawa, Vancouver and Seattle - all cities which have not hosted the summer Olympics. They must have learned a lot from that!

Members of the Health Committee spent more than £50,000 visiting Nashville, the U.S. country music capital, to investigate computer systems. Why for God’s sake? The Welsh Affairs Committee spent £28,000 on a trip to China to study  'globalisation.'

It all rather beggars belief and really makes one wonder about democracy.

5^th January 2009

Bratlet rugby was cancelled and after another lousy night when the problems ahead went round and round in my brain, I woke up to snow and forecasts of more to come. Yuk! That is all I need, but at least I have the prospect of my trip to the sunshine - and rain, but at least it should be warm rain - to keep me going. So much to do and so little time to do it though. It is all making me quite fretful.

Number Two Brat (Graeme) and family arrive for a couple of days today too and that should be fun - particularly if the snow gets a bit thicker. It will give me a chance to get to know my Ozzie bratlets and that I am really looking forward to. God only knows what we will feed them on but I'm sure we will make a plan.

And still the demontrations against Israel and their actions in the Gaza Strip continue around the country. Most of the pictures I have seen show demonstrators being led along by obvious Muslims and I can only wish that Zimbabweans could get the same support. Do these people really understand what they are demonstrating against I wonder. I spent a few hours yesterday reading everything I could lay my hands on about Israel, Palestine, Gaza and Hamas. Although deeply depressing, it was a fascinating exercise.

Israel has been facing ever more sophisticated bombardment from the Hamas government - duloy elected by the people - in Gaza (The latest rockets come from Iran which is scary) since 2002. They have done their best to avoid all out war and now that they have retaliated, are sensibly doing it with one major offensive. What amazes me is the desperate unfairness of so much Western reaction. Israel is unilaterally accused of causing a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, even though it is allowing hundreds of trucks of supplies through the crossing points — so that at one stage aid agencies in Gaza said their storehouses were full. Would that this could happen in Zim but they won't dare cross Comrade Bob.

Few are aware that wounded Gazans — 65 per cent of whom voted for Hamas — are continuing to be treated in Israeli hospitals. Nor are they aware that in a Gaza hospital, by contrast, Hamas shot dead five suspected Palestinian 'collaborators' and murdered a further 30 elsewhere.

The reason for this grotesquely unfair reaction is that so many in Britain now believe as fact the Arab lies about the Middle East impasse. Many think, for example, that the Palestinians are the rightful inheritors not just of Gaza and the West Bank but Israel itself. Yet this is really a load of rubbish. The Jews are the only people for whom 'Palestine' was ever their nation state, hundreds of years before Mohammed was even born.

It was in recognition of that inalienable right that in the 1920s the British undertook
the legally binding international obligation — never rescinded — to settle Jews in every part of Mandatory Palestine. That included not just modern Israel but the West Bank and Gaza, too. Despite this, Israel is willing for the Palestinians to have their own state — as was first offered to them in 1937 — but not if its only purpose is to be a launching pad for the final destruction of its Israeli neighbour.

No other country on the planet has ever been expected to make suicidal concessions to its enemies even while they continue to try to destroy it. Yet that is what the world expects of Israel.

Now the British Government, among others, has called for an immediate ceasefire. But this would effectively mean victory for Hamas. Gorbals Gord wouldn't dream of calling for a ceasefire with Al Qaeda. So why the double standard where Israel is concerned? The answer as always is simple. He is a politician and public opinion in Britain seems to be well against the Israelis, so he will go with that while trying to appear unbiased. Besides, what business is it of Britain? They should be concentrating on their own problems.

Interestingly, the newspapers have at last picked up on the question I asked a few days ago - where is the Middle East Peace Envoy, that dashingly well paid dilletante, Toothsome Tony. In a weekend interview, GG was asked if he had talked to his predecessor since the crisis began. He replied: 'Tony's on holiday at the moment.'

That should really help alleviate the situation. Not that either the Israelis or the Hamas people will care too much about his absence. I do though because I am a tax payer and my money is funding Toothsome Tony's lavish lifestyle.

The man became special envoy representing the powers sponsoring the Middle East peace talks shortly after quitting Number 10 Prime Minister 18 months ago. Since then,  he has never even visited the Gaza Strip, despite the fact that more than a third of the 1.5million Palestinian population live there in abject deprivation

The office space alone that is allocated to TT in Jerusalem takes up an entire floor in a larnie hotel and costs the British taxpayer half a million pounds a year - and more when Blair and his entourage are in town. Yet he can still afford to be on holiday while the bombs rain down on Gaza and Hamas fight back with rockets.

People are dying there, Tony Boy. It is surely time you did your job and tried to control the situation.

Here, golf is the latest target for the Health and Safety brigade. Being caught in a thunderstorm or hit by a ball ought to be the only real dangers in a round of 'damnit.' Yet players of this most relaxing of games are being warned they are at serious risk of shattering their eardrums when they tee off.

Modern titanium clubs create a 'sonic boom' when they connect with the ball, say scientists. The risk of going deaf is so great that doctors are advising golfers to wear earplugs while they play their tee shots.

Experts have identified at least one case of a golfer of 55 who they believe has damaged his hearing as a result of using one of the new drivers three times a week for the last 18 months.

Among the many millions who play the game, surely one case of hearing damage doesn't constitute a crisis. I wonder how long it will be before ear plugs on the golf course are as ubiquitous as helmets on a cricket field. They are equally as ridiculous!

4^th January 2009

I am just hoping the cold weather doesn't cause the cancellation of bratlet rugby today as this will be my last game before I return from Africa at the end of March. It is certainly cold - bitterly so - but this is the first of the County Cup matches and so should be considered important enough to go on whatever the weather - I hope.

Talking about sport, there was an almost immediate uproar at the allocation of gongs to sportsmen and women in the New Years honours list.

Every Olympic gold medallist at the Beijing Games was given some sort of honour, despite the fact that we as tax payers are already paying for the training of 99.9% of them. To make it all seem even worse, 17 of the 35 Paralympic athletes who brought home golds missed out.

The first person to complain about this inequity was Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, who rightly said that the achievements of able-bodied and disabled athletes should be given equal recognition after the 2012 Games in London. Why not right now damnit? I am an admirer of Dame Tanni, but this adulation of sporting achievement on this one occasion is somewhat over the top. Yes, sports stars should occasionally be honoured. Steve Redgrave fully deserved his knighthood after winning gold in five successive Olympics, but although Chris Hoy won three golds, these were all in the space of a few frenetic days when he was at the pinnacle of his form. That was what he had trained for damnit!

Anyway, the rights and wrongs of the system were not what I was scribbling about, but rather the difference in treatment meted out to Olympians and Paralympians. Great Britain's Paralympics team won 102 medals, including 42 golds, to finish second in the medals table behind China, making them Britain's most successful Paralympics team in two decades.

Team GB - the able bodies lot - came fourth in the medal table with a haul of 47 medals, including 19 golds - their best performance since the London Games of 1908. Paralympic swimmer Eleanor Simmonds won two golds and received an MBE, while Rebecca Adlington was given the higher-ranked OBE for her two golds.

It all sounds very unfair to me, but the whole situation was neatly summed up by Peter Hitchens in one of todays tabloids.

'I can't take the Whitehall Honours List seriously again,' he wrote, 'until there's a gong for Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the Foreign Office legal adviser who bravely resigned in protest at the Iraq War, thereby doing her duty rather than merely following orders and doing her job.'

He is right too. Why should people be 'honoured' for being good at what they are paid to be good at? Rather honour those who display outstanding bravery, skill or common sense at a time when it is needed.

I have avoided commenting on the carnage going on in the Middle East - apart from wondering why the Toothsome One isn't there sorting things out - but I do have a lot of sympathy with the Israelis. Yes, I know there are people demonstrating against them all over the country at the moment and one would have to be flint-hearted not to be shocked by images coming out of the Gaza Strip as their jets seek to close down the terrorist government of Hamas.

For all that, little or nothing has been written over the months as Hamas poured salvo after salvo of rockets into Israel, sometimes more than 50 a day. This has been going on since 2002, more than 6,000 rockets in six years. At first they were ramshackle affairs, little more than a drainpipe with a large firework at one end and a grenade at the other. But with Iranian help they have become long-range, accurate and devastating.

They no longer fall harmlessly into the Judean desert; they plunge into towns and villages crammed with women and children. Last week, just before the Israeli reprisals started, there were 60, then 80, in two days. I cannot think of a single country, including Israel's noisiest critics, who would tolerate hundreds of rockets pouring into their own towns and do nothing. Even Egypt has pleaded with Hamas to stop... but to no avail. Surely the Israelis cannot be blamed for fighting back.

Yes, civilians are being killed, but this is surely the fault of the Hamas leaders who cunningly placed their killing outposts in the middle of heavily populated centres, knowing that the Israelis would initially hesitate to fight back for fear of killing innocents.

I feel that all these worthy demonstrators would serve the cause of peace with far more efficacy were they to go and spend time in the affected areas, rather than let their emotions be swayed by mainly Muslim rhetoric.

Mind you, sometime the Muslims are on the wrong end of the stick. Nine of them, of whom  eight were US-born citizens, were ordered off a US flight on New Year's Day after two girls overheard what airline officials described as suspicious remarks.

The group, including three children, were removed as they boarded an AirTran flight from Washington to Florida, where they planned to attend a religious retreat. One of the nine, Kashif Irfan, an anaesthetist, said his brother and his wife were discussing the safest place to sit. "[They] were discussing some aspect of airport security," he told local TV. "The only thing he said was: 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety."

After other passengers informed the crew of the remarks, the pilot decided to abort the flight. All 104 passengers were cleared by the FBI, but AirTran refused to take the Muslims, who were forced to pay for a ticket with another carrier. A spokesman for the airline defended the decision. "People made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane," Tad Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Agency backed the airline. "Security is everybody's responsibility," Ellen Howe said. "Someone heard something ... inappropriate, and then the airline decided to act on it. We support [the pilot's] call to do that."

Irfan said he thought the group, of south Asian descent, had been targeted because of their appearance. The women were wearing headscarves and the men sported beards.

"It was an ordeal," said Abdur Razack Aziz. "It was paranoid people. It was sad."

It was also typical of the crazy world we live in. America prides itself on being the 'Land of the Free,' but I fear that is all in the past. They are now as cowed and battered by a Big Brother Government than we poor folk in this benighted land.

And how can he possibly speak of 'fairness' when he has created a welfare system that punishes hard-working taxpayers while rewarding scroungers, and a criminal justice system that lavishes attention on the ­human rights of criminals while failing to protect the public. In a desperate attempt to strike a Churchillian pose, Gord also speaks of the genius and heroism of the British people. "Britain has faced down many greater challenges than those before us today," he says portentiously.

Just to make sure we get the point, the Downing Street publicity machine has been spinning the line that Brown believes 'the Blitz spirit will save us.' What hypocritical cant. He surely cannot be allowed to get away with it?

But he doubtless will. Amazingly, Gorbals Gordon's star seems to be rising in the opinion of the public and I would not be at all surprised to see him swept back into power. Talk about the Emperor's new clothes! People will see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe.

What really made me cross was GG's demand that we 'keep our promises to the world's poorest.' What he meant is that we must continue to squander money on corrupt African dictatorships like Comrade Bob's, while at home in Britain the elderly and vulnerable are neglected.

That is democracy - New Labour style - for you.

3^rd January 2009

Interesting to see that Chancellor Darling Boy is seriously considering another huge bail out of the banks. Why for God's sake? These institutions have become massively bloated with overpaid managerial staff and ride rough shod over their customers, yet now that times are hard, it is those customers who are supposed to bail them out of their self-made difficulties.

Take the bloke who went into a branch of Lloyds TSB just before Christmas. He wanted to give his granddaughter - she might have been his niece - £50 and decided that as she had probably never seen a £50 note, he would get a brand new one and put it into a card. Having made his request to a cashier, he duly handed over two twenties and a ten but before he was given the fifty, a supervisor stepped in and demanded an extra £5 'administration charge.'

That was truly iniquitous and quite rightly, the chap walked out. His granddaughter was pleased with her two twenties and a ten. Despite the fact that they were grubby!

Yet this is all fairly symptomatic of the way banks impose their own rules and have absolutely no consideration for their customers. I was 19 when I worked -briefly - for the Westminster Bank in Cheltenham and we were taught that the Manager was next to God and the customer was King.

How times have changed yet still we are expected to fork out for these pin striped villains.

Political correctness seems to be going mad in the education sector at the moment and it surely cannot be good for the future of Britain's schoolchildren. In fact, one school in Sheffield - or rather its administrative staff - is now giving plain speaking a fresh slap by no longer calling itself a school. Watercliffe Meadow is branding itself 'a place of learning' on the ground that the word school has 'negative connotations.' Pretentious claptrap I'm afraid. I wonder how they describe school holidays?

Place of learning holidays doesn't sound quite right somehow.

In Scotland, things are even worse inasmuch that the traditional school sports day has been given the sack by the forces of political correctness. Fresh from saving school football teams from humiliating defeats, council officials are now banning competitive track events like the sack race and the egg and spoon race so that slower children don't suffer the trauma of losing.

Local authorities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, North Lanarkshire, Fife, Aberdeen and Falkirk have introduced 'potted' sports. These have no individual winners and losers. Pupils are awarded points for taking part rather than winning, so creating a more 'inclusive' spirit. Activities include throwing balls and bean bags, negotiating obstacle courses and running relay races.

Edinburgh council has already introduced rules to allow losing football teams to field extra players. The regulations decree that if one team is more than five goals ahead at half-time, the score reverts to 0-0. Teams have also been banned from playing in league and cup competitions. Instead, they compete in an endless series of friendly matches.

After their recent performances on the rugby field, I had high hopes for Scottish sport - I do so love listening to their unofficial anthem, 'Flower of Scotland' - but if this keeps up, we can scrub them off the sporting calendar. If a child is not taught how to lose, he will never know how to win.

Life just isn't like that.

I started this entry with finances, so let me end it that way as well. Did you know that one of the country's most important jobs is held by a little-known 49-year old civil servant called Robert Stheeman. As head of the UK Debt Management Office, it is his responsibility to find financial institutions prepared to take the risk for the record-breaking amounts of British government debt flooding the market. He has until April to unload an eye-watering £157billion of debt.

Huge though it seems, that is indeed the true figure. No one should be misled by Chancellor Alistair Darling's claim in his pre-Budget report that government borrowing would 'only' reach £78 billion this year. Disingenuously, Darling came up with the figure only by excluding the money needed to bail out the banks. Moreover, debt will rise, according to official statistics, next year to 8 per cent of GNP. That, too, will be Stheeman's responsibility. Meanwhile, he should reflect that if he is successful, it will be Gorbals G who will hog the credit and claim Messiah-like status yet again. If he fails, it will all be Bobby Stheeman's fault.

I'll bet he learned how to lose at an early age.

2^nd January 2009

I suppose it is time I changed my pocket diary over and transferred addresses and phone numbers. It seems that every year, there are a few more that don't need transferring because either they have turned their toes up or they have disappeared from my life by not being in contact and changing their address or phone number. All very weird but it gives me an excuse to stay inside today. It is very cold once again and forecast to get colder. Yuk.

I did like the story of shopkeeper  Tom Algie who faced a dilemma over Christmas  -  how to give himself and his three staff time off but without letting down his customers. Being a trusting sort of bloke, Mr Algie left his hardware store open with an honesty box on Boxing Day.

He left a note telling shoppers who came in to serve themselves and then leave their payment in the box he had rigged up.

When Mr Algie returned at 4.15pm to close up, he was delighted to find the shop in Settle, North Yorkshire had taken £187.66  -  and two euros.

He said: 'I didn't think twice about leaving the shop open. Settle is a lovely quiet rural town and there's never any trouble here. I put my faith in my customers and I wasn't disappointed.

'It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I just wanted to spend the holidays with my family but thought it would be quite nice to open up the shop.'

As well as the cash, Mr Algie also found some notes of thanks.

One read: 'Thanks Tom. This is why we moved to Settle. This shop would have been cleaned out in two-and-a-half minutes in Bolton.'

And in most other towns too I reckon. It seems there is some decency left in this horrible old world of ours.

I want to be a 'Community Space Challenge Co ordinator - or I might want to be one if I knew what on earth the job entailed. At a time when private companies are having to slash costs, the State sector is advertising for recruits with titles like that.

A recent report found that the number of jobs being offered by councils and quangos in the Guardian newspaper's Society section has increased by 14,000 in just three months. In contrast, private sector employment has dropped by 128,000.

The average public sector worker was paid £21,413 this year - 3.4 per cent more than private sector workers who earn an average of £20,715. The posts highlighted in the report include a 'Community Space Challenger Co-ordinator' at Southwark Council, with a salary of between £28,494 and £33,777.

The role involves telling children 'at risk of offending' about their environment and the space around them. The advert for the job states: 'You will significantly enhance the quality and usage of public spaces, and ensure that everyone in the community has a real sense of ownership and pride.'

See why I want it?

Another beauty is offered by Moray Council in Scotland who are advertising for a 'Street Fottball Co ordinator. This worthy will be responsible for assisting in the planning, planning promotion and delivery of the street football project'.

That one might not be too arduous either and £19,887 per annuim is a hell of a lot more than I can earn as a garden boy.

Braintree Council - I think they are in Essex - want a Climate Change Officer at a salary of over £38 000 and his or her responsibility will be 'to reduce the Council's effect on the planet.'

That is an easy one. All he or she has to do is get rid of most of the councillors.

Toothsome Tony seems to have put his foot in it - or maybe he was putting a discreet knife between Gorbals Gord's shoulders.

Replying to a question after giving a lecture at Yale University in Connecticut, Mr Blair said: 'It is true that we had ten years of record growth when I was prime minister but I have, unfortunately, come to the conclusion that it was luck.'

The Tories seized on Mr Blair's remarks as an 'extraordinary admission'.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: 'Tony Blair has exposed the damning truth about Gordon Brown's chancellorship. The good times were all down to luck.'

Mr Blair's spokesman said the comment had been a 'self-deprecating joke' and the former PM 'remains proud of the record he and Gordon Brown established.'

I'll bet he is and I'm damned sure he is pleased to be out of it, but as the Middle East Peace Envoy, what is he doing at Yale University while the Israelis and Hamas are having their own little punch up in that self same Middle East? Or has the Gaza Strip been moved to America?

Silly question really - The Toothsome One is lining his pockets again. I don't really think much will change over 2009.

1^st January 2009

Here we go on yet another year. I suppose at my advanced age, every new one is a bonus, but it seldom feels like that.

I smiled somewhat bleakly when I read the various messages put out by politicians and world leaders to mark the beginning of 2009. 'Crisis - what crisis, we will square our shoulders and sort things out,' seems to be the general theme of the messages, but yet again - and this applies particularly to Britain - these worthy plonkers accept no blame for getting us into the crisis in the first place.

The best piece I read this morning was by Mrs Thatcher's former Press Secretary - now Editor of The Oldie - Bernard Ingham. He was writing about Comrade Bob and he ended the piece by saying that 'if we are not prepared to remove Mugabe, we should just shut up.

How right he is. The more people like Gorbals G or Mincy Band rant about him, the more Bob enjoys it and the more he can focus on Britain, racism and colonialism.

So please politicians, give us a break in 2009 and shut up about Zim - or is that too much to hope for.

I had a very quiet New Years Eve. I did poddle along to the pub early in the evening - it was Wednesday and I have become a creature of habit - where I spent a convivial hour or so, then I came home, cooked steak for supper and escorted Herself up to the Sports and Social Club where she was joining others for a party that I couldn't face.

I came back home, stoked the fire up and sat with one of my bottle-shaped Xmas gifts, some music and a book. I lasted till after eleven too, but then it was too much for me and off to bed I went. I can't remember when last I missed seeing the New Year in, but I don't feel that I missed much.

At least I won't be too hungover and bleary-eyed this morning.

Mind you, the air outside is sharp enough to banish the meanest of hangovers. It was minus four yesterday and although I haven't yet stuck my head outside, today feels colder yet. I walked rather than cycled yesterday, not because my bum was sore - which it was - but because thick frost and dense fog made cycling difficult. I fear that today is likely to be the same.

And with the Christmas and New Year celebrations out of the way, would you believe that Easter Eggs have already made their appearance in the shops?

Some things don't change, recession or no recession.

Let's hope 2009 is a good one for us all.

31^st December 2008

The last day of the year and I confess I won't be looking back on 2008 with any form of fond nostalgia. It has been a brute of a year. I have taken an emotional battering and although Blood Sweat and Lions continues to sell reasonably well despite a total lack of marketing, both my writing and gardening have taken enormous toll of my physical strength.

I suppose it is all part of growing old, but I find it awfully frustrating. 2009 just has to be better, even if I have to set up a series of visits to my Horse Whisperer.

Finding Adrian was probably the high spot of my year, in that I went to him as a total cynic in a state of desperation and now spend my time recommending his services to everyone with serious health problems. I reckon I am going to claim commission from him next year.

Talking about fitness, I have now been on two not-very-taxing bike rides, keeping myself out for an hour and pedalling most of the time. It has been bitterly cold on both occasions and when coming back yesterday, the muscles in my legs cramped most painfully while this morning, I have an extremely sore bum. I don't know the technical reason for the cramps - probably something to do with lactic acid freezing as it goes through my legs - but it has to be because of the cold.

I was told the other day that I am a born worrier and I suppose I probably am, but my forthcoming trip to Zim is beginning to worry me. I received more horror stories about the damage being inflicted on Kariba elephants from Geoff Blyth yesterday and I am desperately afraid that the money I am raising to help those elephants is going to be far too late. They are too gentle, too habituated to Mankind and too easy to approach. Somehow I have to get an editor interested.

The cycling part of my trip also worries me. On the last occasion I cycled, I was able to work on my bike beforehand and sort everything out before I left, but on this occasion, I will be using John Falkie's bike and although I can picture it in my mind - it is blue - I know nothing about the damned thing so will have to sort everything out once I am there. In South Africa, I am struggling with car hire,as a credit card is needed, which of course I just don't have.

Oh well, I suppose it will all sort itself out, but yes, I am worrying myself silly about it.

For South African sportsmen, 2008 was a very fine year. Their rugby players beat England at Twickenham and better yet, yesterday they inflicted the first home cricketing defeat on Australia for 16 years. I was almost scared to look at the scores yesterday morning as although they did not have a big score to chase, cricket is a funny game, but they eventually coasted through to take the series, which was quite an achievement. As their left arm spinner Paul Harris commented after the game, 'There isn't enough beer in Australia for the party we are going to have.'

Writing more than 2,000 years ago, a Roman politician made the following observation: 'The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.'

These words were uttered by Cicero in 55BC. Sounds as though it could have been said to describe the situation in Britain today. I hope Gorbals Gord and his cronies remember what happened to Rome..

Talking about Gorbals G, I note that he - and president elect Obama - are both burbling on about increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. Why for God's sake? What are they hoping to achieve? If our vital interest is to deny a sanctuary there to al Quaida, do we have to build a whole new Afghanistan to accomplish that? I have little doubt that Al Quaida left there years ago for a new sanctuary in Pakistan?'

I believe that this is plain gesture politics from both men and that all they will achieve is more deaths and more suffering for the ordinary people - not to mention the families of servicemen killed and wounded in action. The problem is that neither man has any clue what an army is actually for, or what victory would look like. They haven't been under fire or felt the gut-wrenching physical fear that comes with combat, so to them it is a mere numbers game.

All senior politicians should be given a three-week stay in the front line of a combat zone. It might make them think about more than their political futures or the mark they will make in the history books. As the official peace envoy for the middle East, Toothsome Tony is remaining very quiet about the fighting in Gaza at the moment, so he is probably wondering what on earth to do. That is definitely a man who could only have benefited from a bit of military action.

On which jaundiced note, I shall leave the year behind. Next Year will be better!

30^th December 2008

I complained about the cold yesterday or the previous day, but forecasters are warning that  bitter winds, freezing fog and icy nights will usher in the New Year. Temperatures could drop to as low as minus thirteen celsius in the next couple of weeks as Britain experiences night after night of frost. Daytime temperatures will barely rise above zero in many areas and revellers will need to wrap up warmly on New Year's Eve to keep out the chill.

The forecast follows the coldest start to winter in three decades and a blast of snowy weather which hit Britain in early December. Met Office forecaster Stephen Holman said the next two weeks are expected to remain bitterly cold. There is significant risk of a 'very cold snap' towards the end of the next fortnight bringing sleet and snow in northern and eastern regions, he added. 'We are pretty confident that temperatures will stay below average for the next two weeks,' he said.

Doesn't that sound like fun?!

I read an excellent piece by Max Hastings yesterday in which he bemoaned the way health and safety regulations are taking over this country. I can only agree whole heartedly with him and wonder where on earth it is all leading, but one point he did make struck a very deep chord. He castigated the Oxford coroner who keeps slating the government, the army and just about everyone else when it comes to inquests on the men killed in Aghanistan or Iraq. Yes, technically, the man is probably right, the soldiers do need more protection, more armour and more just about everything else, but like Sir Max, I wonder if that coroner has ever been anywhere near the realities of life in a battle zone. War is not a well ordered business; it is a confused mass of panic, disorder and paralysing fear. The senior officers on the ground have the lives and welfare of their men very much to heart, but like everyone else, they make mistakes and should not be castigated by some jumped up civil servant in his snug office who is basically reading from a book on how things ought to be done.

Mind you, that Oxford coroner is fairly ypical of the times with his impracticality. It has now been decreed that the fire service will have to put at least one woman on each fire engine to meet diversity guidelines. New targets - drawn up by whom I wonder - say that at least 15 per cent of those in operational roles should be female, which means they will fill one of the five or six places for crew on each engine.

Officials at the Local Government Association, which is pressing the quotas on fire authorities, said that an increased number of women firemen - a contradiction in terms perhaps? - is necessary 'to meet the needs of local people.'

But critics warn that they are placing their targets above the need for fitness and strength. Susie Squire, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Introducing this sort of quota to the fire service is a big mistake. If ever there was a job that should be awarded on merit and physical fitness, it is that of a firefighter.

Give it time Girl; it won't be long before we have to have at least one person from an ethnic minority, one lesbian and one cripple on every fire engine. There should also be places for the blind, the idle and the totally unfit! When will these stupidly blinkered people learn or are they following some mischievous agenda of their own in trying to make society look ever more stupid.

If that is the case, they are definitely succeeding.

Did you know that more than one government computer goes missing every day. It is true - the statistic comes from government ministers and they surely cannot be wrong. Since the start of 2002 nearly 3,000 computers have been lost or stolen across Whitehall, which equates to eight every week.

In total 1,774 laptop computers and 1,035 desktop computers have been lost or stolen, a rate of nearly five a week and three a week respectively. This year alone 238 laptops and 40 desktops have gone missing. The past seven years have also seen 676 mobile phones, 202 hard drives and 195 memory sticks lost or stolen.

And we trust these people to run a ruddy country!

29^th December 2008

Winter seems to be taking hold now, as the last few days have been bitterly cold and this morning it seems colder still. Still, it has also been reasonably sunny and when the sky is blue - or relatively so -  the cold is almost bearable. I do wish that north easterly wind would die down though. It really cuts through the thickest of clothing.

Having realised yesterday that with three weeks to go before I head off into the blue, I had better do something about getting myself reasonably fit, I hauled my poor old bike out of the shed and would you believe it - I have a rear wheel puncture. It was too cold for puncture repairs - even assuming I could find a kit - so it meant walking again. That in itself is fine and I walk a long way, taking in as many hills as I can, but at this stage I need to cycle.

Oh well, I will get it repaired today.

One thing about walking is it gives one plenty of time to think and as I plodded up those ruddy hills yesterday, I couldn't help musing on the unpredictability of fate. Take the sharply contrasting experiences of Emma O Kane and Jean Paul Duminy this week.

Ms O Kane was a young mother of three and was out celebrating her partner's birthday in a Manchester pub on Boxing Day evening. While she was drinking and talking with her friends, there was an altercation at the door and a youth was denied entrance to the pub - presumably because he was piddled or just behaving badly. The youth promptly hurled a bottle in to the bar, it smashed against a pillar close to where Emma O Kane was standing and a sliver of glass went into her neck and killed her.

That surely is fate and completely unavoidable? She would not have known anything about the altercation, had nothing to do with the youth and would not have seen the bottle coming.

At the other end of the scale, take South African cricketer J.P. Duminy. JP - as he likes to be called - has been a member of the full SA team for a long time, but rarely managed a game, except when there was nothing at stake. The day before the first Test match against Australia, Ashwell Prince broke his thumb and so JP was in for his first Test. He played well for an excellent fifty - including the winning runs - and as Prince still wasn't fit enough to play, kept his place for the next Test. Yesterday he hit a masterly 166 runs which will hopefully lead to another South African win. When talking to reporters, he said that he didn't think he would keep his place once 'Princey' was fit, but I would think he is on his way now for a long and successful Test match career - all because of a ball cannoning into Ashwell Prince's thumb.

See what I mean about fate? It doesn't matter what you do to avoid it, that fickle finger is lurking around the corner and what will be will always and most certainly be.

Homespun philosophy at this time of the morning. Hell, it is still dark outside.

Meanwhile, teachers have been told that they should no longer make their corrections to school homework in red ink, in case it both 'demoralises' the pupils and stands out too much 'in an oppressive manner' on the page. They should use a pencil, instead, so that the corrections can be rubbed out.

Do you suppose there is any connection between the way children are treated while in school these days and the way some behave when they have left? It has nothing whatsoever to do with fate and can only be put down to blind stupidity on the part of the worthy Mr Balls and his so-called educationalists.

When oh when will they learn?

28^th December 2008

Trawling through the news agencies this morning was a depressing experience. Most of the columnists seem to be reflecting on the year almost past us and few have anything good to say about it. Here we are, approaching 2009 with almost indecent haste while society around us is in danger of falling apart - or so it would seem.

Personally, I do not think it is falling apart but I do think that one small but powerful sector of modern society has lost any semblance of common sense or a sense of humour.

The World Cancer Research Fund warned yesterday that one pint of beer  a day increases the risk of liver and bowel cancer by almost 20%. Do we really need to know that and in any case, so what? The same report also concluded that processed meats including ham and bacon should be avoided to cut the risk of bowel cancer.

I don't particularly want to go down with the dread disease, but I have a life to live and if I am to avoid everything that just might make me slightly unhealthier, then that life is unlikely to be much fun. Besides, I might live a completely miserable - but ragingly healthy - existence and give up all that is pleasant in life, only to be run down by a bus when crossing the road.

I wouldn't like that.

Over the past year, we have heard little about the hunting ban but it seems that the hunts themselves are healthy and thriving. On Boxing Day, more than 300,000 people converged on the countryside to take part in or cheer on the annual events across England, Wales and Scotland. Nowhere can I find a single quote from a politician on the abject failure of such a hugely controversial piece of legislature. I have never been able to understand the joys of fox hunting, but the ban itself did little for the fox - we now have a number of very mangey animals skulking around in this area - and it seems to be cordially ignored or got around throughout the country.

Education Secretary Ed Balls seems a bit of a prat really, but some of his policies beggar belief. It now seems that pupils are being offered TVs, PlayStations and iPods in return for good behaviour as part of a reward points scheme expected to be operating in 1000 secondary schools within two years.

Tens of thousands of pounds are being spent on prizes to cajole pupils to turn up on time to lessons and behave when they get there. Youngsters collect Vivo points as if they were shopping at a supermarket or making regular flights and trade them for desirable gifts from an online catalogue. Truants and classroom troublemakers can get in on the act simply by demonstrating improvements in attendance or behaviour.

What sort of adults is Mr Balls intent on producing I wonder and how will these pampered brats fare when they get out into the real world. I played truant when I was a schoolboy and was soundly beaten for it. That taught me that rules and laws are there to be obeyed. Had I been offered a reward for mending my ways, I would have found ways and means of bucking the system even more and thereby lining my pockets with more rewards.

I am sure Mr Balls has degrees in all sorts of 'ologies,' but a degree in common sense would be much better, not only for him but for the poor unfortunate youngsters whose destiny he holds in his hand.

The poor old coppers are taking flak again and who can really wonder. When Keith Harding found his son's stolen car, he thought he had done all the hard work for the police. He phoned and told them it was parked outside a nearby block of flats, and waited for action.

But to his astonishment officers said all they could do was send someone to pick up the car at a cost of £125. They said they did not have the resources to investigate the case.

The BMW was stolen inNovember from the Harding family's home in Rayleigh, Essex, by thieves who broke into the house and took the keys and other items, including a purse belonging to Mr Harding's wife's. The purse was found by a member of the public only ten minutes' drive away, so Mr Harding decided to do the investigating himself - after all, he couldn't expect to get much response from the local law.

He drove around nearby roads until he spotted his son's car in a private car park for a block of flats. Mr Harding immediately called the police, who took an hour to arrive. The officer then called CID to see if a detective was available to investigate how the car ended up parked in the block of flats. But after another hour, CID rang back to say that 'no resources' were available.

Mr Harding then drove the car home after a friend dropped off a spare key, rather than pay the £125 tow fee.

Sounds par for the course really but perhaps not surprising when one reads that 'research shows' that if single moms are subsidised by the government, the number of single moms rises. Amazing isn't it?!

Even more amazing is the fact that a government think tank reveals that snow is more likely in January than in July. Where do they find these people and who pays them for such nonsense?

Silly question really - we do.

27^th December 2008

So now it is all over and we only have the weekend to get through before life can return to an even keel. For me, yesterday - Boxing Day - was intensely special, although Herself put me in a state of acute nervousness beforehand by whittering on about possible breakages and spoiled brats. In the event, they behaved impeccably and I really enjoyed having them with me.

It was interesting - and encouraging - that bratlet 5 - Dougal whom I had expected to have a broad Australian accent, actually spoke extremely well and could have been taken for a Pom. Must be in the genes I suppose, but I was impressed with both of my Ozzie bratlets.

At one stage yesterday morning, Liz listened to the news on the radio and commented that it was perhaps vaguely reassuring to know that nothing in the outside world had changed. The credit crunch was still crunching, people were still dying and being killed and the weather was exactly the same as it has been over the previous week or so.

In our little elm-like cocoon, it could all have stopped and we would have known nothing about it.

Such I suppose, is the magic of Christmas.

One small group of people for whom Christmas probably was not what it was should have been due to their reduced circumstances is the government pensioners of Zimbabwe. They really have been treated extremely shabbily and this free spending British government should be heartily ashamed of itself - but probably isn't.

These folk were originally recruited to run the civil service of what was then Southern Rhodesia and when Ian Smith declared UDI in 1965, Harold Wilson urged them to stay at their posts.

During the Lancaster House talks of 1979, which negotiated the transition to majority rule, they were assured that their pensions would be secure. Since 2003, the ex-civil servants who now live in South Africa or the UK have received no pension at all. Those who have remained inside Zimbabwe find that their pensions won't buy so much as a postage stamp. All are eking out their final years in conditions of direst poverty and distress.

In a House of Lords debate last October, Lord Crickhowell, who was a member of the Thatcher cabinet during the period of the Lancaster House talks, spoke of his 'sense of deep shame and embarrassment that we are now in this position' and expressed his 'hope and expectation that this Government will do something to honour the pledges given.'

Of course they won't. Gorbals Gord has far too much on his plate to worry about a small group of elderly people who remained loyal to Britain through deeply troubled times.

It all has horrible echoes of the wretchedly mean treatment meted out to the Ghurkas. It took the High Court to give these former soldiers the right to remain in the UK, regardless of when they retired or were stationed. The Zimbabwe pensioners can only hope that the Ghurkas victory will show this useless government the way of compassion so that they will be paid out enough money to allow them to live out their remaining days in some sort of comfort.

I am not holding my breath though. GG and his merry men have an appalling record when it comes to cases like this.

As I said earlier, the world still goes on and it is not a very nice place.

 

26^th December 2008

It was a quiet and not unenjoyable Christmas for me. Santa was generous with his gifts - many of which were bottle-shaped - and with Lovely Liz staying for a few days, we sat around and did nothing. A roaring log fire, a surplus of fine grog and gentle conversation from time to time made it extremely relaxing for this crumpled scribbler.

Now to face my horde of brats and bratlets. Two of the latter will be missing unfortunately, but it will be a real gaggle of Lemons - more perhaps than there have ever been together in one small house. I might be the patriarch, but I feel decidedly nervous about it all.

The newspapers and agencies were extremely quiet today - apart from the usual lamentations about the credit crunch. Max Hastings had an excellent piece in the Mail in which he bemoaned the erosion of trust in modern society and he surely had a point or two. Who can we trust? Politicians are by nature untrustworthy, but what has happened to bankers, policemen, judges, hospitals, educationalists and even journalists nowadays. They have all given us cause for distrusting them over the past year and there seems to have been a sad slide in public opinion of all these once proud professions.

As a Zimbabwean, I would add aid agencies to Sir Max's list. They are still pontificating about the need for the rest of us to dig deep into our pockets for the 'starving masses,' yet little of the money thus raised goes anywhere near the folk for whom it is intended. Much of it is used up in administration costs and the rest is happily diverted into the pockets of people like Comrade Bob.

Sad really, but a fact of modern life.

The police in this country are supposed to be apolitical so when PC Steve Bettley of the Merseyside Force was named in a list of BNP party members, it was probably quite justifiable for him to be hauled over the coals. The officer, who was briefly the driver for chief constable Bernard Hogan Howe, has been suspended from duty since the list became public last month.

On the other hand, with so many senior officers such as Sir Ian Blair and the anti terrorist chief Bob Quick actively and openly dabbling in party politics, why on earth should the personal politics of a junior constable result in such a fuss?

Is it perhaps because he is junior and thus much easier to pick on?

It is Christmas and the season to be jolly; I have my entire family - well almost - coming to see me today and I have even found an extra blood pressure tablet to see me through the weekend. My unofficial sister in Harare told me on the phone yesterday that she had paid 8 billion Zimbabwe dollars for two cauliflowers - small - and a cabbage - so the price of beer in this country isn't really cause for concern - yet.

So I refuse to let the politics of the world get me down today. Mind you, I will probably be back to ranting tomorrow.

Happy Boxing Day everyone.

25^th December 2008

I had not intended to write anything this morning as (a) I don't suppose anyone will have time to read it, (b) I intended to give myself a lie in and (c) I reckon I need a day off.

Well, the lie in didn't work and I was up at my usual crack of dawn. I read yesterday that an extra hour in bed helps ward off heart attacks, but if that is the case, I should probably have popped my clogs a long time ago. I have an irritating, built in alarm clock that wakes me up very early, no matter how tired I may be.

I had a truly special Christmas surprise yesterday - another reason to write as I need to share this - in that I came home from work, weary, wet and fed up with life. No, that was not the surprise - I usually come home from work, weary wet and fed up. On the doorstep with the mail was a small parcel addressed to me. I was intrigued as I wasn't expecting anything and when I opened it up - no waiting for Christmas Day for this crumpled scribbler - a copy of my own book Rhino dropped out with a card from lovely Jilly Wright who helped so with my last two manuscripts. She had seen on my web site that I don't have a copy of that book and had managed to find one on Amazon.

What an absolute delight that was. Now, for the first time in many years, I have a complete set of David Lemon books. What a pleasure and if you read this Jilly Dear, thank you yet again. You really made my Christmas for me.

As it is Christmas Day, I won't rant today, but I heard last evening - in the pub would you believe - that Charles Willey who lives down the road and is one of the Wednesday Saga Louts in the Kings Head, has cancer and is due to start chemo therapy in January. He asked for the Horse whisperer's phone number so I will be happy to give that to him later today. I did ask whether he had put enough money aside for the wake, but if anyone can sort out Charles' problems, it is Adrian Pengelly.

Okay, no rants as promised, but I just hope everyone who reads this - and everyone else for that matter - will spare the odd thought today for all those Zimbabweans having a miserable Christmas - as well as everyone who is unhappy wherever they might be.

Apart from that, enjoy your day and raise the odd glass to one very crumpled scribbler in France Lynch please.

Happy Christmas.

24^th December 2008

Well, for cildren all over the world, this is a very exciting day. For children in Zimbabwe - with a few exceptions - it is just another day in the hellish misery that is their life. Over the years, I have approached so many politicians and financial moguls about the Zim situation and time after time have been fobbed off with the platitude that Zim is a sovereign state so there is nothing the West can do.

Hitler's Germany was a sovereign state, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a sovereign state - as were any number of little countries that have been invaded and sorted out by greater powers. What is so different about Zimbabwe? Why should millions of innocent people be subjected to the evils of Comrade Bob and his goons? Why should they be allowed to die in agonising squalor while Mugabe and his men grow fat on stolen wealth? When will the West actually do something?

The short answer I suppose is that they won't. Mugabe is a black African. He came to power on the shit tails of the loonie left who now seem to run so much of Gorbals Gordon's Britain. For some reason, he is still revered in Black Africa as a freedom fighter, even though everyone has forgotten that Bob himself took no part in the fighting. So Britain - this same Britain who handed a prosperous little country over to this despot - stands by and wrings her collective hands while the rest of the western nations ignore the whole damned mess as being just part of Africa.

As you can probably tell, I have not had a good night! I dreamed continuously about people in Zim and my dreams were horrifying. Now I have to face Christmas Eve and put on a happy face, but that will not be easy. The situation for ordinary Zimbabweans is getting worse by the day and somehow, I have to try and stir something up among British politicians in 2009. It is a daunting prospect, but I cannot just stand by and do nothing.

Another forthcoming event that worries and appals me over the festive season is the New Year Party at Charara outside Kariba. It has been going on for years now and has always been a hotbed of drunkenness and wildness among Zimbabwe's youth. Not in itself a bad thing, as the young have to blow off steam from time to time, but for the human and animal residents of Charara itself, the event is an annual tragedy.

To have 2000 odd youngsters going mad in this remote and beautiful corner of Africa has a devastating effect on the wild life. Last year, we lost Tusker - a long time favourite elephant in Charara. He had been around the camp for years and although he was mischievous, he was as gentle with his mischief as any kitten.

 Tusker only had one tusk - a trait which makes some elephants irritable, but he was never like that. I can remember stopping off for the day in Charara when I did my walk and in mid afternoon, this huge elephant wandered across to where I was snoozing on the grass. My stomach tightened when he veered towards me, but then I recognised him and just watched as he approached. Towering above me, he sniffed around with his trunk, decided that I had nothing in the way of titbits to offer and ambled away. I would like to think that he recognised my scent from previous meetings but perhaps that is wishful thinking. Whatever the case, at no time did I feel threatened.

During last year's revels on New Years Eve, Tusker picked up a tent and placed it gently in the centre of the road. Nobody was hurt, but youths then started tormenting him with firecrackers, nudging him with their cars and generally making his life a misery. He still didn't retaliate and that was unfortunate. He would have been shot as a 'problem animal' had he hurt anyone, but in the event, he was shot anyway, so he might as well have taken some of his mindless tormenters with him.

Johnny Rodrigues of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force has done his best to have the Charara party cancelled, but it is worth a lot of money to the organisers, so it will go ahead as usual and I have little doubt that another elephant will die. They are tame at Charara, totally habituated to people and always curious as to what is going on.

God knows, young Zimbabweans need a bit of fun in their lives at the moment, but not at the expense of the elephants.

I was musing with a friend the other day on the difference between Zimbabwean youth of generations past and Zimbabwean youth of today. When I grew up - and even when my brats grew up - there was little in the way of organised entertainment to be had so we made our own. We got out into that incredible countryside and enjoyed the bush. We learned in that enjoyment and became very proud of being part of a very wild and lovely landscape. It was a wonderful way to grow up with vast spaces to roam in and so much to see and do.

With the problems besetting the country nowadays - and I have whittered on about them at length - life has changed. Few people live in the rural areas now - it is far too dangerous - and Zimbabweans of whatever colour who can afford it, have retreated into the towns and cities. There they have their swimming pools and their satellite dishes so they have little inclination to get out into the bush. The end result is that when they are out there - as with the New Years Eve bash at Charara - they have absolutely no idea of how to behave. They don't respect the bush and its denizens, which is why incidents such as the one with Tusker take place and in the end, everyone suffers and we all lose a little of our heritage as Zimbabweans.

I suppose it is a sign of the times and the sociologists would describe it as progress.

I really am sounding like a grumpy old Skinflint this morning, aren't I? Put it down to a bad night and I promise I will paint a big smile on my face for the rest of the day. A couple of early evening beers and a snog or two in the pub will doubtless help.

Happy Christmas Everyone but please spare a thought for ordinary Zimbabweans over the next few days.

23^rd December 2008

Well into Christmas week now and the world is still going mad at an appalling rate. Take for instance the Scottish Nationalist MP who wants that crazy old dance, the hokey kokey classed as a 'hate crime' because it has 'anti papist' roots and is therefore 'sectarian.'

Then of course there is the Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Tyler who is up in arms about the Strictly Come Dancing final and wants the BBC to release all the voting figures.

I have always said that the result of that competition is pre ordained, but to be honest, I could not care one jot who wins. Why though does a peer of the realm and opposition front bench spokesman for something-or-the-other have to get himself involved? The country is in financial turmoil, people are losing their jobs, their pensions and their houses and this popinjay is worried about a televison programme?

And of course the hokey kokey! Perhaps these parliamentarians just do not have enough to do.

The same could be said of the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism chief Bob Quick, who I mentioned yesterday. The furore over his remarks about the Conservatives still rumbles on but Quick is merely typical of the modern, senior police officer.

The way to the top of the police force used to be to show a bit of flair at putting criminals behind bars. Today, it's mastery of political correctness  -  and the ability to grovel to politicians. Rather than starting as junior constables, catching thieves and then working their way up the ladder, many senior policemen study criminology at university: Quick for instance has a masters' degree in Business Administration, a diploma in Applied Criminology and a Masters in Strategic Leadership.

Unfortunately, he failed in the common sense department and has little experience of actual policing. I bemoan this state of affairs in my talks on the police as I firmly believe that there is absolutely no substitute for experience in coppering.

In one of my talks, a member of the audience walked out after declaring me 'fascist,' but Assistant Commissioner Quick merely bears out what I say about senior policemen nowadays. He is keen on the jargon of modernisation and management-speak and as Chief Constable of Surrey, one of his prouder achievements was hiring a consultant to 'develop, pilot and evaluate a strategic integration model to deliver a mixed economy workforce.'

So when the terrorists strike again, the people of Britain will be in safe hands.

In Lancashire, police officers have been forced to attend a health and safety seminar to learn how to climb a ladder. They had been installing roadside electronic speed indicators for months, using a 3ft ladder, without injury or incident.

When health and safety officials learnt of the scheme they ordered the special training and officers were banned from moving the signs between locations until they had completed the course.

Around 45 officers and more than 80 civilian volunteers have now had the training, organised by the police, Lancashire County Council and Lancashire Fire and Rescue.

Sounds like a scheme that might have been devised by Mr Quick himself. What on earth is going on in this country? No wonder Comrade Bob is allowed to continue with his reign of terror in Zimbabwe.

Mind you, he (C.B.) must be trembling in his boots at the moment as he has been branded 'impossible' and 'mad' by Britain and the U.S.

Africa Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said the Zimbabwean president had become an 'absolute impossible obstacle' and would have to step aside and his remarks came just after Jendayi Frazer, the US envoy for Africa said Bob was 'losing his mind.'

Unfortunately, all they are doing is giving Comrade Bob fuirther ammunition to throw at the West. Words are not going to upset him in the slightest. The western powers need to throw something far more tangible at the man than veiled insults.

These people are world leaders - surely they too need a bit of common sense?

Or am I being naïve again?

22^nd December 2008

Why do problems seem so much larger during the early hours of the morning? I have always been a lousy sleeper, but of late it has grown infinitely worse and while tossing and turning for hours, I sometimes wonder how I will face the day ahead, let alone the rest of my life. Yet when daylight finally arrives - and it takes an awfully long time in December - nothing seems quite so bad.

I suppose it must be the darkness that causes the angst although I have always enjoyed being in the dark - literally rather than figuratively!

Oh well, I suppose I am just one of those unfortunates who is fated not to sleep well. Time to get on with my day so I might as well burble for half an hour or so.

I mentioned Beryl Markham and her writing yesterday. Interested to see just how old she was when we talked, I looked her up on the Internet and found myself vaguely horrified to read lots of discussion as to whether or not, she actually wrote West With The Night. It seems that she was a much married lady and one of her husbands was a journalist and ghost writer, whereas she hardly ever even read a book, let alone wrote one.

I don't suppose anyone will ever know for certain, but whoever wrote it, the book was truly excellently written and a wonderful read. Beryl Markham was quite a girl too and I met her in 1985, whereas she died a year later at the age of 84.

What a girl!

The Cops are in trouble here yet again. This time, the head of the Anti Terror Squad, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick has publicly accused the Conservative Party of corruption in meddling with his enquiry into Damian Green and the 'leaks.' Very soon afterwards, he was forced to apologize!

A spokesman for the Conservatives blustered that, "The Conservative Party played no part whatsoever in the publication of this story. Assistant Commissioner Quick's claims of corruption and intimidation are absurd and wholly untrue. As the officer leading the inquiry into the arrest of Damian Green, Assistant Commissioner Quick should display objective professionalism and not make baseless, political attacks."

Minutes later Mr Quick issued a statement from Scotland Yard.

He said: 'I regret and wish to retract my comment regarding corruption. The comment was made as I was in the act of having to move my family out of our home to a place of safety following an article in the Mail on Sunday."

This really is becoming a hugely petty matter. Why on earth the anti terrorist squad should be involved in investigating leaks, I really do not know but surely it is time the police force settled down and tried to rebuild its image. My talk 'Aren't Our Policemen Wonderful' is beginning to sound like a comedy act.

Talking of which, a children's entertainer known as PC Konk was strip searched at Birmingham airport and had his plastic handcuffs confiscated before being allowed to board an aircraft that was being used for a kiddies' party. I don't know what the children thought - or even if they knew that their 'bobby' no longer had his handcuffs, but if I had been PC Konk, I would not have been overly pleased.

Another one in a similar predicament was Shaun Cartwright, a busker playing his bagpipes in Bridport, Dorset. He was arrested, handcuffed - no plastic jobs for him - and whisked off to the police station for causing a breach of the peace. Why on earth do they handcuff a busker? In my day, shackles of any sort were used as a last resort with particularly violent criminals, not with street entertainers.

Cartwright was accused of causing 'distress' to shoppers - which came as a great surprise to him as he had made £50 in just an hour of playing.

Officers told him that his piping had annoyed members of the public and even seized his pipes for a while, although - inevitably - they later released him with the news that it was not in the public interest to prosecute him.

I have to confess that the only busker I have ever given money to was a kilted piper playing in Stroud centre. I thought he was very brave and noticed that he too was doing very well. Why on earth do the British police seem so very keen to make total asses of themselves these days? I presume someone must have complained about the piping, but you can bet your life, most people would have greatly enjoyed it. Surely a modicum of common sense could have been used - or is that too much to hope for?

Did you know that we poor tax payers are forking out thousands of precious pounds to pay parking fines run up by those worthy people who run the country. Over the past three years, Cabinet Ministers have run up fines totalling £33 000. That is £3000 a month that we have to pay. Officially, they should pay their own fines and quite rightly so, but they are exploiting a security loophole that means the cost being borne by Joe Public.

So you see, Comrade Bob is not the only corrupt politician around. They are all at it. Once Bob declares a state of emergency in Zim - it is coming - he won't need to pay for anything at all - not that he does, but he will be able to make this official. The only problem is that his tax payers won't have the money to pay his parking fines - or anything else.

One thing about having a Sunday morning to myself is that I can read through all the newspapers, including the rags and tabloids. It can be an interesting exercise and yesterday, I was intrigued to read conflicting stories - I won't mention the rags - about this singer lass, Amy Winehouse. One paper had her at death's door with emphysema and virtually confined to a wheelchair, while another sported photographs of her bathing topless in a Caribbean resort.

Don't believe everything you read in the newspapers!

21^st December 2008

This is the shortest day of the year, so in theory - but only in theory - the weather should improve from here on in with lighter nights and mornings. On the other hand, I was told this week that the 21^st December marks the official start of winter.

Whatever the case, it looks pretty damned dank out there. Roll on summer.

I am re reading a book by Beryl Markham whom I once met while walking on Mica Point in Kariba. She was an old lady then, but what a lady she was. In the 1930s - an age when women were more cosseted than they are now, Beryl Markham operated as the only private pilot in East Africa, so she was constantly busy and constantly flying over what really was 'darkest Africa' by night. There were no navigational instruments or radio comms in those days so every flight was a true adventure and her descriptions thrill armchair adventurers like myself to the bone.

Her book West With the Night was described thus by no less a light than Ernest Hemingway himself.

She has written so well and marvellously well that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer... But this girl can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers. It really is a bloody wonderful book.

High praise indeed from one of the scribbling immortals, but on page 7 of her book Beryl Markham has penned what I regard as the finest description of Africa that I have read.

Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the candle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home.' It is all these things but one thing - it is never dull.

Now that really is writing. I reckon Papa Ernest had it right - that girl really could write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers.

When I met the lady, she was staying with Hans and Val Van der Heiden with whom Graeme (Number Two Brat) did his apprenticeship as a Safari Guide. I think she was vaguely related to Val and they were walking slowly along what passed for a road down the Point. We stopped for a chat but although I had heard of her, I had never read her book so soon moved on. Life is always so full of missed opportunities. What a lot I could have learned from Beryl Markham.

Talking of Mica Point, I had a phone call from lovely little Debbie Wells yesterday. She is over in this country to have a baby and told me that a couple of months or so ago, she and her Brother Jason scattered their father's ashes off the Point. Apparently John had often talked about his sojourn with the Lemons there in the mid eighties, but when they looked at the place from a boat, they couldn't understand why.

"All we could see was huge houses, Uncle David," Debbie told me. "I thought it was all supposed to be in the bush."

Ah, but that is the curse of progress. We lived in a tiny asbestos pre fab on the Point, but it has long since given way to a modern mansion and the rocky track that we used to stumble down at night with a wary eye out for elephants, lions and other nasties has given way to a wide tar road that is visible from the other side of the lake.

We had neither running water or electricity at Mica Point but we spent an idyllic couple of years there and of all the houses, I have lived in, that one has the finest memories. Where else could one have elephants sticking their heads in through the French windows or have to delay one's bath to allow a large crocodile time to move off? That really was living and I miss it terribly.

What a pity it is that such a place should fall foul of modern developers. Truly Mankind has a great deal to answer for.

You know, people are damned silly animals. I was walking the dogs yesterday and heading down a track called Accommodation Lane (that raises a pretty question or two?) toward the village itself. I had the dogs on a lead and in front of us an elderly (he was probably my age or younger) gentleman was walking a large Dobe