Thought Provoking

Recovering last night from the shock of going back to work after the Christmas break(!) I happened to watch the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures which, this year, concerned the science of Antarctica.

As ever, I found the programmes fascinating. What particularly caught my mind was one fact which came up towards the end of the last lecture and concerned global sustainability. Not to my surprise, the country which exhibits the least sustainable lifestyle is - drumroll please - the USA. What did rather shock me was the fact that to continue to use natural resources at their current rate, the average American requires FIVE planet Earths, as opposed to the one they actually have.

This can't possibly continue and I don't imagine that it will. What I can't foresee is how this will change, but change it must...

Lead by Example?

I was interested to read about Mr Blair's poor House of Commons voting record. Prime Minister he is, but is he not also a constituency MP and as such maybe he should make the effort to stroll down to the chamber from number 10 just a little more often?

Takeover Bid?

I've just driven past one of the local churches (St Mary's in Worthing, if you wondered) and had one of those "what the **** was that" moments. Apparently floating above it was a shining Star of David! I imagine that it was actually a Christmas decoration, but I couldn't help wondering if the C of E had been taken over by a rival!

Maybe My Job's OK After All

I actually mostly enjoy what I do for a living, though I do moan about work from time to time. I did see somebody yesterday with a far worse job than mine...

As I took my dog out yesterday lunchtime we bumped into a cheerful council chap whose role in life is to empty the dog-bins (if you don't know what they are, think about it). Not only did he seem perfectly contented, he even likes dogs, which given that job, I thought was rather impressive.

Flunked It!

David Blunkett, Home Secretary, has apparently resigned following the "withdrawal of his colleagues' support".

I suppose there's a moral here - don't write biographies which slag off those you work with whilst you're still in office...

Deeply Worrying

I'm very concerned about news that many schools are failing to teach their pupils to read. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the most important skills my schooldays equipped me with are not only the ability to read, but the ability to take pleasure in doing so.

Nuclear Nonsense

I'm not anti-nuclear, still less a ban-the-bomber. However, I'm also not stupid and I recognise how dangerous nuclear waste can be. This being the case, I'm not at all happy to read that Britain has decided to bury foreign nuclear waste here.

This is not the sort of money-making wheeze I want my country associated with.

To Go or Not to Go?

It's no secret that one of my favourite bands was and always will be Queen. I'm lucky enough to have seen them in concert three times - 1980, '84 and '86 and when Freddie died I assumed that would be that.

Now it would appear that the band will rise again - and I do not refer to the we Will Rock You musical, which I want no interest whatsoever. There's a message on Brian May's website saying that Queen will tour in April 2005, with vocals provided by former Free/Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers.

This raises a bit of a quandary: should I go, or would I do better to leave my memories well enough alone? Paul Rodgers isn't Freddie Mercury - obviously, there isn't going to be another one of those! He is however, a very good singer and in fact I've seen him in concert as a support to Status Quo, back in the '90s.

This could be worth a flutter...

Swords and Sorcery

When I was still in middle school one of the things I enjoyed the most was being set various books to read. Some of these were, in my opinion rubbish, some weren't, but the one which always stuck in my mind was and still is Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea" which I suppose could be described as a kind of mixture of The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter books.

I enjoyed the first book so much that I bought my own copy together with the the two sequels and have read them many times over - they're still in my library today.

I'm therefore delighted to have read that the tales have been adapted by the Sci-Fi channel as a TV miniseries. It's airing in the US over the next couple of days, so I rather hope that it'll be transmitted over on this side of the pond sometime next year.

Failing that of course, if it gets a DVD release over there first, I can feel a personal import coming on...

Give Peace a Chance

Thank you very much Rev(?) Ian Paisley. Just for a little while it really looked as if we might see a full in peace deal between republicans and protestants in Northern Ireland. I can't believe that this odious bigot has allowed the whole thing to founder over a demend for photographs of IRA decommissioning.

Surely the word of two churchmen and The International Independent Commission on Decommissioning, which is a body recognised by both sides in this process, should have been adequate. Mr Paisley, it was within your gift to deliver to the whole of Northern Ireland the best imaginable Christmas present.

You blew it.

Mostly Awesome!

Just got home after a very late night yesterday watching the superb Mostly Autumn playing in Southampton. I'm lucky enough to have seen the band before, earlier this year, but this time they excelled themselves!

Best thing of all is - I'm seeing them again tonight, this time in London. Gonna be one long weekend...