Had a nice day at the office dear?

The infamous "they" say that there's more than one way to skin a cat, which says a lot about "they" or "them" or whatever they like to be called.

There are also many different ways to view the same issue. For instance, some (I think they may be a sub-group of they) would say that after a hard day at the office, the chance to sit down with a drink in one hand, and some food in the other, contemplating the world around them would be a pleasant way to unwind.

However, I choose to disagree!

Due to a localised power failure the Jubilee line, the only underground in and out of Canary Wharf was suspended at about 5.30pm. No problem if it had only lasted for 5 or 10 minutes.

It didn't! - Four and a half hours later it was still suspended.

I had decided to stay at work a few (OK four) hours longer, to let the 50,000+ Canary Wharf employees gradually find an alternative route home, and so I reached the DLR station at about 9.30.

They hadn't!

It appeared as though about 20 or 30 (not thousand, just 20 or 30!) had walked, or ran, or swam home. The rest of use were waiting fora train on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) which was in the news the other week as it was increasing the length of its trains to accommodate more passengers ahead of the 2010 Olympics.

It hasn't!

Well not the one I tried (and failed) to get on. These trains - plural, but in reality running 15 minutes apart - would look more at home in an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. Especially if they've ever had an episode entitled "Danny the DLR train and 50,000 angry passengers playing sardines".

I eventually got on a train and headed towards the City. In fact we headed towards the City quite quickly! As the DLR is a "Light" railway, when you cram four times as many passengers on it than it was designed to carry, when it goes downhill it does a fantastic impersonation of a runaway train! (...and she blew!)

Anyway I eventually got to London Bridge station where I planned to catch the 22.11 train towards Brighton.

I didn't!

I got to the platform at 22.11 and 30 seconds, just as the train was pulling away.

The next train was not until 22.41, and hence I the reference at the start of this blog to me sitting down with a drink in one hand, and some food in the other, contemplating the world around me. Happy? Me? Hah!

However, this luck could change as I apparently drew out the favourite in the Grand National Sweepstake at work.

Isn't Dobbin a strange name for a racehorse?

April - but not everything is foolish!

One of the great difficulties with being “a bit of a joker” is that when 1 April comes around each year, people assume (do these people not know about the saying?) that everything I say and everything I do, will actually be a practical joke, when in fact everything I said and did was serious.

So when I announced that there was to be a fly past of the Red Arrows over London - which from 35 floors up in Canary Wharf was quite a spectacular sight - many of my team missed it, fearing that it was a “wind up”.

The English press also had similar difficulties in relation to this issue, when highlighting the following stories which were published today: -

1. A new pay-per-view funeral service scheme is being launched today. The Daily Mail says the scheme at Southampton Crematorium allows mourners to grieve from home by watching proceedings online.
2. A turtle is addicted to nicotine. He became addicted after picking up the smouldering butts in his owner's garden, in Kouqian, China, and sulks if he doesn't get his fix.
3. The menopause is caused by the age-old battle between wives and mothers-in-law, reports the Times. As long as 50,000 to 300,000 years ago, competition for food in a family unit was a battle won by the younger women who fed their offspring, which led to the older women losing their ability to breed. With food hard to find, mothers-in-law tended to help rear the grandchildren rather than have more children themselves.
4. School desks and chairs are to be enlarged to meet the needs of the UK's ever-heavier schoolchildren, reports the Express. On average British children are a centimetre taller than they were 10 years ago, and there are more obese youngsters, so desks supplied to UK schools will reflect this.
5. You will soon be able to have a tattoo on your teeth, reports the Sun. Steve Heward, the dentist who started the craze in the US plans to set up in Britain.
   

All of the above were – like me – actually serious, clearly showing that today was not a good day to publish the whimsical, but true, if you wanted people to believe the story.

All of this goes to prove that it is not as easy to identify the truth (or the real) from the lies (or the illusion).

The pictures below are amazing examples of such "illusions", which in truth are real works of art! You really have to "hand it" to the artist!!

Queen tells Gordon Brown to "...Get lost!"

This week the French President - Nicolas Sarkozy - was entertained by the Queen at Windsor Castle as part of his 2-day "state visit".

Part of this "entertainment" was a banquet in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle attended by the British Prime Minister and other dignitaries (sorry that should have read "...Prime Minister and 149 dignitaries").

It was prior to this banquet that our Prime Minister - Gordon Brown - went missing.

Having previously criticised George Bush for not knowing his left from his right, or being able to fight his way out of a paper bag (let alone Vietnam, Korea, Iraq etc) it is only fair that I balance the situation with a suitable "dollop" of scorn on our Gordon.

Getting lost, whilst embarrassing, does not in itself signify a total lack of ability with regards to "running" a country, but sparking a constitutional crisis regarding our dear (quite expensive) Queen is another thing altogether.

How did this happen? Well, when a Downing Street spokesman was asked how Gordon had got lost, the spokesman insisted that Gordon Brown was just "doing what he was told". Therefore by implication the Queen had told him to "Get lost", and Gordon being an obedient soul, did just that.

The video in the link below even shows the Queen being quite amused at Gordon's misfortune. It is a very short clip, and the Queen can be heard saying to Princess Anne: "...The prime minister got lost. He disappeared the wrong way....at the crucial moment." At the end of the clip you can also hear Sarkosy starting to call out to Gordon...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7310000/newsid_7316700/7316744.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1

"...Gordon!" Sarkosy shouts, just as the clip ends, but those who were there state that he then said "...Gordon! You Loser! Why are you sat behind a bunch of flowers? You were supposed to be sat next to Her Majesty, but we didn't know where you were...so I sat there!!!"

The beautiful game?

Football is often described by some as "...The beautiful game". However, having watched the England v France last night there were at least two reasons why I think such a phrase is inappropriate.

Firstly, the way that England played was anything but beautiful.

Secondly....Joleon Lescott! (No further explanation is really required, as can be evidence by the picture below left.)

Not only is he "no great shakes" as a footballer, but he is the closest living thing on this planet to Worf, the Klingon from Star Trek!

Actually, having seen both pictures I now realise that the above statement is rather unkind...to the Klingon!!!

To err is human...but to "misspeak" takes a Clinton

There appears to be a certain mental condition or aberration that exists within the Clinton family that results in them having a clear grasp on reality.

Back in 1998, clenching his jaw and pointing his finger for emphasis, President Clinton denied, in far more forceful terms than before, that he had had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky and coached her to lie about it.

"I want you to listen to me," Clinton said, as he glared at cameras. "I'm going to say this again, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time -- never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people."

At the time I thought that Bill had been "lying". Now I realise I was w..w..wrong!

Hilary Clinton has recently claimed, in a recent description of a 1996 trip to Bosnia, that she landed amid sniper fire. Mrs Clinton did this when she gave a foreign policy speech designed to demonstrate she is more battle-ready to be commander-in-chief on "day one" than her less experienced rival, Barack Obama.

Her recollection of her landing near Tuzla was nothing if not vivid. "I remember landing under sniper fire," she said. "There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

The above picture of Hillary and her daughter Chelsea clearly shows them both running with their heads down, and had the resolution of the picture been even better, presumably we would actually be able to see the sniper bullets to which she referred!

Or maybe we wouldn't because CBS News has now aired footage showing her calmly alighting from her military aircraft and indeed participating in an arrival ceremony. At this point I once again assumed that she had been lying in her recent speech.

Seemingly, once again I was w...w...wrong!

It appears that neither Hillary nor Bill were "lying", it is just that they both "misspoke"!

I had never heard of this term before, but given that it has been used by some of the most powerful people in the world, I guess it must be OK. It is also comforting to know that I have personally never lied about anything in my life.

But as for "misspeaking"? Possibly!

Never mind Easter - show him your cross!

I am pleased to say that I did not embarrass myself this Easter, or at least not as much as I nearly did a few years back.

Whilst I am not particularly religious, I do understand the general concept of Easter, and whilst having some sympathy with the views of comedian Alan Carr, ("...a long weekend is great but I can't help thinking that if Jesus had just held on a bit longer we could have had a full week's holiday!") I do realise that this does tend to trivialise this important religious festival.

Neither was this (i.e. the trivialisation point) my intent a few years back when on this same weekend I noticed a family friend, Phillip, walking through our village.

At the time (and I should point out that I don't have 20:20 vision) I was in my car and Phillip appeared to be struggling to carry a large wooden object, and was not helped by the fact that a large group of fellow villagers who were walking behind him, were offering him no assistance whatsoever!

"Shall I stop and give him a hand?" I asked MN&D, to which she gave me a withering look and asked "Don't you know what he's doing?".

I think this may have been a rhetorical question, because as I started to reply, that "Yes, he's struggling to carry that big wooden cross..." I suddenly realised that Phillip, the village's Vicar, was staging a re-enactment of Christ's journey.

I also fully appreciate that had this modern day re-enactment concluded with with "Christ" arriving at the crucifixion site, in the front of a Mondeo estate, with his cross hanging out of the back of the said car, that some of the religious and symbolic significance may have been lost.

However, whilst my willingness to help was somewhat inappropriate, at least my heart was in the right place!

Holly Willoughby - what is a breat?

For those of you who have not previously watched ITV's Dancing on Ice, Holly Willoughby is one the two presenters, the other being Philip Schofield.

Whilst still learning the trade, Holly makes a good co-presenter as she is young, pretty and "well-proportioned", if you like that sort of thing! Clearly not everybody does, as ITV received complaints from viewers one week when a particular dress that Holly - who is a curvy lass - was wearing, as they thought that it was too low cut.

As a fan of her "presenting style", I was drawn to the news-stands in the local newsagents yesterday where that well known and celebrated magazine "Love it!" (No, I hadn't heard of it either) had the headline "Holly Willoughby - Tormented by being 'thick'".
I was so deeply moved by the thought that this poor young girl could actually be living a life of torment that I took a peek inside the magazine, to learn more about her "troubles".

It was on these inside pages that I read with both shock and horror the headline and sub heading below!
Now, whilst somewhat distracted by the photos of Holly, I did in fact manage to read the article which described how Holly had suffered at school due to her having dyslexia, which went undiagnosed for a long time. (For those of you thinking that this may have been the reason why Holly didn't sell her story to 'KO!' magazine you should be ashamed of yourselves!)

Once her "condition" was recognised, Holly received additional support at school and soon after her results improved.

After her schooldays, Holly became a lingerie model prior to becoming a TV presenter, and remains proud that her figure is "...all her own", and has not been enhanced by surgery.

However, given the content of the article, I think that it is almost criminal that the spelling was not checked to avoid the fact that the subheading states that Holly said that: -

"...at least her breats are her own"

Are they "...taking the mick" out of her condition? If not, what are breats?

"Stwffiedig" at 'r Cymraeg...dwywaith

Whilst this has been a short working week, it has been noticeable for the fact that the Welsh have conspired to spoil both ends of it for Englishmen (and women) like me. Not that there should be too many English women like me, but hopefully you get my drift!

Firstly, last Saturday, they played their little hearts out in the final match of their Rugby Six Nations campaign beating France to win the "Grand Slam" and denying the English team their rightful place on the podium.

Today, I had to visit the Principality on business, and set off this morning with my Passport in my pocket to ensure that I would be able to get back into England when my meeting was over.

The first issue that I had was that I actually had to pay to get in - £5.30 it cost - about the cost of going to see a good film, and if I had been going to see a good film it would have been entitled "A dreary day in the valleys".

Having just about got over the indignation of this charge I drove into Cardiff for my meeting at Cardiff University, where, the first issue that was raised (which I can assure you had absolutely nothing to do with the business reason for the meeting) was the fact that Wales had won the "Grand Slam"! Not wanting to be churlish, I demonstrated what a good sport I was and said "Did they?...I'm not really interested in Rugby. Is that like winning the Rugby World Cup, because I think I read that England nearly did that twice in a row didn't they?"

The meeting was much shorter than I thought it would be for some reason.

I then headed back to the multi-storey car park where I'd left my car on the top level. I took my ticket and placed it in the pay-machine. Up popped the price - EIGHT POUNDS! I'd only been there in total about two and a half hours.

Reluctantly I put my credit card in the slot to pay this extortionate fee. The machine chugged...gulped...swallowed and then refused to give me either my ticket or my credit card back. I pressed the intercom that took me through to a NCP Car Park customer service (Hah!) operative and explained my predicament. I'll get somebody down to see you shortly.

"Shortly" is an interesting word! Now, I blame the fact that 'Doctor Who' is filmed in Cardiff, as "shortly" clearly has a different meaning for these "Time Traveller" influenced folk, as I had to wait in front of the now 'Out of Order' pay machine for over half an hour!

This delay was just enough to ensure that as I eventually left Cardiff, I hit the rush hour traffic and got caught up in all of the traffic jams on the way back to Sussex as people set of on their Easter breaks.

So it was that I was "stwffiedig" at 'r Cymraeg...dwywaith (which I think, and hope means "Stuffed by the Welsh...twice")!

Clinton loses chance of Democratic Party nomination

Whilst I clearly don't want to tempt fate, it appears as though Barack Obama, has just sealed the Democratic Party nomination by doing....nothing.

It will not be his momentous "race" speech that will do it, even though the strategy of testing the response of the nature ahead of the Philly primary, was a great tactic, as he had little to lose, as he is currently 12 points behind Hills.

What has just secured him the victory has in fact been a 6 year old video of Hillary Clinton lending her support to....Heather Mills.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WlFsVi5zuhc

Whilst some may question Obama's choice of friend & local priest, everyone will question the Hillary's judgement over who she considers to be worthy of praise. And if anyone is worthy of praise about anything, it is not Heather Mills!!

This is a little sad as I was just about to suggest that Hillary could possible start to use a new campaign slogan, that re-worked the saying "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" - something like "A bird in the House is worth two x George Bush", but now I won't even bother.

Macca's "dame" does her nut!

And so, the judge has finally decided that Heather Mills shall recieve the princely sum of c£24million for her four year marriage to Sir Paul McCartney.

Apparently she was asking for £125m and he had offerred £16m, therefore whichever you cut it, the settlement is far more in line with what was offerred as opposed to what was sought.

This reminded me of the Mastercard "Priceless" adverts - one of which described a young woman's "Favorite Things" and their price. The advert can be see at the above link, but was supported by the following commentary: -

Riding boots - $600

Vintage helmet - $129

Dive mask - $125

Zero gravity flight - $3,700

Fencing foil - $97

Singing lessons - $183

Getting the most out of life - "Priceless"

Heather Mills' version of the above advert

First class travel - £5m

Luxury holidays for life - £20m

Two Victorian Mansions - £45m

Bodyguard protection from the press - £10m

A staff of 50 to wait on every move - £45m

Convincing the public that you are not a manipulative, money-grabbing, vindictive old "harpie" - "Priceless"