As many of you know, for a variety of reasons I haven't been sleeping very well of late. It's probably inherent anxiety, but hopefully it will be sorted soon. On the other hand, perhaps it is someone upstairs preparing me for the delights of my training contract. Anyway... the things you learn:
a) there is still quite a lot of traffic on the road, even at 3am
b) car alarms seem to go off quite frequently, even though I never wake up to them when I am asleep
c) there really is no decent tv (even on Sky) around 3am... I watched an episode of DinnerLadies last night, that was about all
d) you can watch the end of all your favourite films (without missing them, because you are asleep!), via your laptop, in bed
e) you get hungry about 1am
f) hot baths, hot drinks, alcohol, no alcohol, caffeine, no caffeine - they all make no difference
g) the motto "if you can't sleep, don't count sheep... talk to the shepherd" does actually work to an extent... it's peaceful
h) being awake and yet dopey is a great excuse to re-read the endings of all your favourite novels and poems

I'm going to away and therefore be in company for the next four nights... fingers crossed I shall be able to sleep like a dream!!

I see from the Guardian that I left a name out when discussing potential replacements for Johnnie Walker. Apparently, Chris Evans is a hot tip. Hmm.

This is just a little note to say that my posts on this darling weblog may be slightly less frequent than in the past. This is for a variety of reasons:

a) Dayorama is actually getting quite a reputation as a rather credible weblog - consequently, my wittering and bad grammar doesn't have such a place as it did
b) I'm going to be away quite a bit over the next few weeks, so may not be around to post as regularly
c) Considering the fact I start work in 6mths, I need to be increasingly careful about what I say over the internet

That's all really.

Wow, how's this for breaking news... Johnnie Walker has just announced all of 30 seconds ago that he's leaving the Drivetime slot on Radio 2 at the end of March in order to start presenting a more spiritual show on Sundays, and do more filling in for Wogan in the mornings. Take your bets now for his replacement - I have Maconie in the clubhouse as leader, Richard Allinson as next favourite, Noel Edmonds has to be up there, and on the outside John Inverdale and Alex Lester. (And on the very outside, Mr Williams, who is keen to introduce organic housing to a broader audience...)

G4 - they of X Factor, Bohemian Rhapsody, and that funny little blonde one who's the only one anyone can remember - are releasing an EP.

In what could never be construed as a blatant attempt at commercial gain off the back of shallow emotional blackmail, the working title for the EP on Sony BMG's guide to release dates is 'Mothers' Day EP', which should give you an idea when it's coming out as well.

Completing a bumper week for fans of plasticky music reality TV also-rans, Journey South are releasing an album at the same time, currently wittily entitled 'tbc' on the spreadsheet. 'Mothers' Day Album', anyone?

Five Live really got me going just now.

It's a phone-in show hingeing on a debate about a website entitled Fake Alibi which does exactly what it says on the tin: pay your money and the website's staff will organise a fake alibi for you according to your requirements. The idea is mainly aimed at love rats, who can arrange to receive a full itinerary as well as messages and phone calls relating to an entirely fake trip, then spend the weekend away with their lover instead, with nairy a suspicion on the part of their loyal husband/wife.

Naturally plenty of the people phoning in to the show were hostile to this idea, not least the show's presenter himself, who branded anyone calling in support of the website 'mad'. But in a point I made by text message (and they actually read it out, which pleasantly surprised me) the presenter made the odd assumption that the people being cheated on using the service were absolute angels. More than once he exclaimed that the service was allowing people to con 'decent' and 'innocent' individuals.

Do you think everyone using the Fake Alibi service will be setting out to con a decent, innocent individual? Or might some of the site's clients be oppressed (psychologically, mentally, perhaps physically), frightened individuals escaping an aggressive environment? If you were trying to buy time away from a threatening partner to spend either with someone else or in therapy or seeking help somehow, would you rather lie to them outright with no support, or use this service to give you a 'watertight' alibi? (Of course in that situation you'd probably want to talk to someone like the police or social services, but threatened people don't often feel capable of doing that for obvious reasons.)

Changing subject, and if I've had my little slice of fame on Five Live tonight, one of our erstwhile readers' dads has had his across the pond. David Whitehead, dad of Rachel on the LCC broadcasting course, is quoted in a New York Times article on ownership of port operations. It's probably quite exciting if you're well versed in the world of ports and shipping (and he's director of the British Ports Association so I imagine he knows a thing or two), but suffice to say the article goes a little over my head. Congratulations all the same!

I'm currently working on a very interesting article regarding the identity of an Oxford student who emailed SPEAK, the animal liberation activists, with this:

Hello my friends,

I will kill a cat for each new post on your website!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA (Where your website is www.speakcampaigns.org.uk )

To prove that I am not bluffing, I hit a stray cat on the head with a baseball bat, but it wasn't quite dead, so I put it in an old cage I use for torturing hamsters and threw it around a bit.... Then I took the attatched picture on my mobile phone. * Click to see picture * I was thinking of posting the cats I've killed to you, but what address shall I post them to? Please let me know.

See you on saturday!

Attached to the email, sent early on Friday morning, was a photo of a cat in a state of distress. You can read SPEAK's version of events here (and let's not pretend SPEAK are an entirely blameless organisation when it comes to acts of violence, but that doesn't make the email any better).

I'm well aware who the student was that sent the email, and was all set earlier to provide full details here. But I've been warned off doing so "for security reasons" at the college concerned. I'm waiting to see exactly what those security reasons are before doing anything else, so I'm afraid there's no news for now, but suffice to say the individual involved appears to be disturbingly odd on a number of levels.

I can't get away from the similarity between the e-fit police have issued over the Great Tonbridge Robbery, and the 118 118 team.

Of course if my suspicions are confirmed and the latest adverts are to be believed, the police will have quite a job catching them: they've got an A Team made up entirely of children and a ten-strong choir helping them make good their escape...

Had a parking ticket off Barnet council recently? Then it's your lucky day.

A tribunal's ruled all their parking tickets are invalid over a technicality, explained as follows:

The tickets only stated the date of the parking infringement, not the date on which the ticket was issued. The adjudicator, Timothy Thorne, argued that this was against the law even though [the tickets] are almost always issued while the car is illegally parked.

[source: This Is Local London - 'Council ordered to pay back parking tickets']

And the tribunal agreed with that in the test case of Hugh Moses, from Golders Green, who said: "Barnet Council must be really worried. It would be interesting to know how they are going to deal with the other people that have received tickets."

Indeed it would! I'm reliably informed that parking tickets in Barnet generate a whopping £5,000,000 for the council each year. Now even if we say it's only the last year's tickets that are invalidated, or perhaps tickets more than a year old can't be the subject of claims against the council, that's a lot of money to pay back. In fact it's the council's entire housing budget for this financial year, and around about the budget increase they're seeking for next year.

The plus side for Barnet, of course, is that by no means everyone will now flock to court to get their £40 or whatever back. But one wonders how quickly they'll alter the tickets they're issuing. Strikes me it's free parking in Barnet for the time being...

Dayorama's weekly showbiz round-up now (all of one paragraph at the bottom of a post about Barnet council), and we can exclusively reveal that Jude Law used to live in Lewisham with orange bedroom walls and a black floor. More on that story as we get it, which probably won't be for a while since we're not particularly close to Jude, so you'll just have to make do with that nugget.

And finally today, a Norman Lamont anecdote, because we don't often have those here. A while back, two passers-by (my sources) bumped into Mr Lamont in central London, looking somewhat the worse for wear. Their suspicions were confirmed when he rather boozily enquired of them where he was. At which point one of the pair looked around, pointed at the building next to them and said, "It's the treasury, Norm. Remember? You used to work here."

Two new features are now live on Dayorama!

It's been a long time since I've been able to say that. The site design you're seeing now came into being around June last year, and after that I've only really changed the images that rotate at the top of each page, with maybe the occasional RSS icon change or something.

But today, two brand new pieces of kit: first up, we've got a blogroll.

It's been a long time coming, but there's now a 'Blogroll' option on the menu beneath the Dayorama logo (it's replaced the old 'Gallery' option, which I never, ahem, got round to properly sorting out). If you click that you'll go to a page where we've each supplied a selection of our favourite links, and I'm sure we'll come up with more as we go along.

Second, on the right of the home page you can now find 'Dayorama Prospects', a list of events coming up in our lives that we're likely to mention on here. For example, at the moment you can see there's an auction in Northampton on Friday, along with some other stuff. The idea is you can see what's coming up and then come back later on to find out what we had to say. We might drop some major news, political and sporting events in there as well, as reminders for both you and us, and as a hint we'll be covering them here. If you click any of the entries you'll be taken to a full list of what's coming up.

That second gadget's provided for free by 30boxes.com, an ingenious online calendar application. You can sign up for one yourself if you want. The idea is you've got one big box in which to enter all your events - just type the date, what's going on, any times involved and anything else you want, and it'll work out what the hell you mean. It's not perfect at getting it right yet, but it's doing pretty well.

What really impressed me, though, was the fact that I could build one of those boxes into my Google toolbar. The little Google search box above my main browser screen can now transform, with one click, into a 30Boxes entry form, so I can quickly write calendar entries into it and then hit return - hey presto, it's on our calendar. That's extremely powerful functionality. 30Boxes therefore comes highly recommended from me!

Our Curryspondent's been in touch about his revelation that Ken Livingstone isn't the only politician with a grudge against a London media organisation. Nope, we can exclusively reveal that of all people it's Milky Whiskers MP, formerly known as George Galloway, with an axe to grind against BBC London.

We know this because our Curryspondent went along to Kitten Towers yesterday to grab a quick interview about, well, curry in his constituency. Mr Whiskers' public relations officer was of the opinion he'd be up for it, but alas on arrival, that wasn't the case. Our Curryspondent said he was from BBC London and this seemed to put the cat out, so to speak. It turns out that according to George there's some form of ongoing dispute between the two parties, and Galloway, normally so difficult to actually shut up, won't say a word on 94.9FM.

One wonders if it might be over the insults traded between Whiskers and Oona King during a debate arranged by BBC London last year, as recorded in this (oddly bipartisan) Respect report:

BBC London's political editor Tim Donovan, who was chairing the debate, asked if he thought it "odd" or "misguided" that he should be attempting to unseat one of the few black women in parliament.

Clearly between then and now BBC London and Whiskers have gone their separate ways.

Anyway our Curryspondent went back this morning offering to do the interview for a different BBC station, but nothing doing, only a very curt 'no' from Mr Whiskers, famed for his kitty impression at the feet of Rula Lenska. It's almost as if he's suspicious of the press these days.

I'm not alone!

For years I've battled on in my faith, ignoring the many detractors or those who simply had nothing to say, and now it's all paid off.

Someone else loves Five Star.

My friend Alice, off the LCC course, has not only heard of them (usually an achievement in itself) but knows the lyrics! We were singing 'Rain or Shine' together in Elephant and Castle earlier. It was a heavenly moment. This hasn't happened before and isn't likely to ever again.

She also fancies Romford's finest, Stedman Pearson, one of the five members of the Pearson family who made up Five Star in the mid-80s. "A British version of The Jacksons", no less, according to their Wikipedia entry.

1986 and 1987 were Five Star's zenith, which you'd think might rule me out of their fan club, aged between one and three as I was. But no. They released five singles in 1986 alone, reaching the heights of numbers two and three in the UK chart. A video of my toddler self dancing to one of those hits exists somewhere, so I know I already liked them then, when they actually were quite famous. Always in when the bandwagon's barely rolling, me, Kaiser Chiefs style.

Less thrilling is the revelation that their Greatest Hits album, my Five Star bible and a collection I'm now listening to on my laptop, reached just number 53 on the album chart in 1989. How the mighty fell! But they'll always be remembered, by me and Alice.

a) A milk float. When did you last see a milk float in central London?

b) A camper van driving down Oxford St. I'm sure that must be illegal.

I know a few people who will be genuinely thrilled to discover that MC Hammer has a weblog.

Thanks for that little nugget go to our erstwhile friends Bloggers' Blog, though for some inexplicable reason they failed to mention OJ's contributions in their round-up of Olympic blogging.

Elsewhere in the news, the 'great Tonbridge bank robbery' now makes sense. They've found the van near Ashford, just a short way down from the Kent Showground. I'd been wondering how the Kent D of E group was going to pay for last weekend's extravaganza...

The Animal Liberation Front are apparently going to attack anyone with any connection to Oxford University, which I'd imagine will become quite a drain on funding and manpower for the group; I wonder if, as a one-time paid-up member of the Vegan Society, VIVA and PETA, I'm on the hit list. Strikes me they may want to do a little background research before sending the heavies round to leap on top of me and beat me into submission.

Meanwhile their good friends Pro-Test are all over the telly this morning, marking the earliest point an Oxford student has ever woken up on a Saturday. Mr Tom Holder from Pembroke College made an appearance on the news, so being a nosey sod I went on Facebook and found his profile (everyone has one now, no wonder certain folk wrapped from head to toe in tinfoil claim it's a big CIA conspiracy to get all our details in one place).

And the boy seems practically identical to me with one minor exception. He plays the drums, likes Pink Floyd, enjoyed the film Hotel Rwanda, has an Eddie Izzard quote on there, and is a friend-of-a-friend of four friends of mine (as in me, my friend, their friend, Tom). But he likes to poke animal rights extremists in the face with sticks, figuratively speaking at least, and I really don't.

This probably makes him far more upstanding and righteous than I in the minds of a section of society, but I adhere to the basic sentiment that the protesters outside the Oxford labs are unlikely to be reasoned with on the ground. Or indeed anywhere else. Setting up a separate protest and going over to say hi is tantamount to getting a vivid red flag, then wandering over to a bull who's just lost a winning lottery ticket, and waving it vigorously. Yes of course they've got every right to mount a protest (anti-protest? Pro-Test anti-protest protest? Protest cubed?), I just think it's asking for trouble rather than making a serious point or any real headway. This is not going to change anything for the better, it's going to antagonise an already unstable group of people.

(I don't think the animal rights protest outside the lab is going to make any real headway either, but two pointless activities do not a point make.)

Finally, Londonist is trying a little too hard with its post on a new Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition. And speaking of Da Vinci, Dan Brown, author of a little-known book mentioning the name, will be in the High Court in London next week in a case to do with it. I might see if I can find out where and when and get down there. Obviously I'll have to be quick about it to beat the absolute media scrum that will descend. Still, knowing the luck of people in the same room as Evening Standard journalists, he'll probably have the misfortune to accuse a Protestant of acting like an Opus Dei member on his way out...

Yesterday evening I got a taxi back to my flat from Mile End. It was only about 8pm but it was dark, cold and I didn't fancy walking back on my own. I telephoned the local taxi company I use and as usual they asked me my name and what colour jacket I was wearing. Usually they then tell me what the vehicle type/colour will be. Yesterday however, the woman said that I would receive a text when the taxi arrived. Sure enough I received a text detailing the time, the location, the car and its registration. The driver addressed me by my first name. I felt secure. I knew it was the right car, and he knew where he was taking me. Now if that isn't about making the world a safer place, I don't know what is.

Ken, you plonker. All concentration camp, no concentration (and not really camp either, inviting homophobic clerics for tea and all that). Mr Livingstone's been suspended for a month over all that palaver about calling a Jewish reporter a concentration camp guard.

Initially I'd thought Ken hard done by to even be held to account over this, but admittedly it took til today for me to realise he went ahead with that little aside having already been told the reporter was Jewish, which is a little less clever. However, Jon Snow is one of many people mildly concerned that three unelected officials can unceremoniously dump his mayority into touch for a month. From the Channel 4 News presenter's daily Snowmail update:

I can't think of many democracies in which a man democratically elected can be taken out of office however temporarily without either consulting the people or at least, the law. It seems hard to believe that this decision is going to be allowed to stand.

Speaking of controversial politicians and ongoing feuds with London media institutions, we might have one of our own by this time tomorrow. It's a joint Dayorama/LCC operation. More when we get it from our Curry Correspondent (all shall be revealed).

* Alternative titles: Build The Oxford Animal Lab; Spank My Monkey; etc. etc.

This is one of those rare things for a historian: the chance to make a prediction about the future. Tomorrow, in Oxford, there will be two demonstrations. The first is organised by SPEAK, who are an anti-animal testing organisation. Over the last eighteen months, they have been protesting about the construction of a new building in the University's science park that will consolidate all the animal testing that is currently done in Oxford. They are regularly to be found near the American Institute (an oasis of liberal arts in a mass of chemistry buildings in the science park), and have a particularly catchy shout of "Stop the Oxford Animal Lab." Typing it doesn't really do the cadence justice. To varying degrees (depending on who you believe), SPEAK is associated/has been infiltrated by the ALF. ALF - the Animal Liberation Front - are a militant organisation who have burnt down a number of college boathouses, violently threatend the architects involved with the project, and recently stated that anyone involved with the University in any way is a legitimate target. It is because of the ALF that the project has been delayed by some eighteen months so far, and that the Government has become the ultimate underwriter of the project. It is also why all the builders contracted to the site wear balaclavas to hide their faces.

The second demonstration is organised by Pro-Test, a group that is in favour of the Oxford Lab, and against the actions of the ALF. From 11.30 to 1.30 tomorrow, they will be marching from Broad Street, up to the science park, and back again. It turns out that the instigator of Pro-Test is a 16 year old boy from Swindon on a gap year between GCSEs and A-Levels. Since then, however, the cause has been taken up by many in the Oxford community. And the media links here mean that I counted reports on tomorrow's demonstration in all of today's broadsheets.

Some are predicting that up to 1000 students will march with Pro-Test, as some will also march with SPEAK. All I ask is that it stays peaceful. I doubt that Pro-Test will have that many people turn up. I, for instance, will actually be in London, dining with Ollie and Amy and finally exchanging gifts. But if they do, then it's entirely possible that all hell will break loose. Not least because there's also an English Faculty Open Day happening as well in the same area. Colleges as a matter of course are gated during these demonstrations. But one thing I'm almost certain of - it'll be on the front page of the Sunday Times. Check back in a couple of days to see if I'm right...

Hmm. Following my post about the Irving trial a few days ago, I've been wondering what exactly I should write. Much has been fluently expressed about the situation elsewhere in the press and the blogosphere, so I shall just add my own scattered thoughts, rather than synthesise the whole thing.

David Irving is a bad historian. He misrepresented his own sources, and failed to account for others that were readily available. There is a lot to be said for being outside the mainstream academy, but there is also a limit which I think Irving crossed, whereupon he became a posterchild for forces that used history for their own ends. Of course, some twenty years ago, Irving was widely regarded as a good historian. That's the way these things go. It's important to remember that he went to prison not solely because he is a bad historian. If there were punishments for bad history, I should imagine that there would be many - not least in Oxford - who would be afraid.

Irving was punished under Austrian Holocaust denial laws. So the real issue, and I don't think this got enough space in the commentaries, is whether as a society we should be willing to imprison people for making statements that are so offensive that we classify them as criminal. After discussing the matter with some friends, there was a clear argument that Austria (in this case, though it goes for the other countries with similar laws) is showing a lack of maturity as a nation. 60 years, and almost three generations on, there is hardly anyone who does not appreciate what happened during World War II. More importantly, I don't think there's any reason to think that by letting Irving's speeches go unpunished, Austrians - or Europeans - are implicitly in agreement with them. Ever since the Lipstadt trial, Irving has been widely discredited in mainstream society, and those who favour his beliefs are a minority for whom Irving is only one idol. That to me is a sign that society has done a pretty good job of self regulation in this matter. It goes back to that oldest of choices - would you rather be too free and suffer some negatives, or unfree and miss out on the positives? Freedom always wins. And part of being a historian, of course, is going back to the sources yourself if you disagree with the conclusion of someone else. As much as it is true of postgrad historians, for example, it is also true of everyone else - always think for yourself.

And so here's another thought. In light of the current climate, could Irving's writings ever be construed as "glorifying" holocaust denial? It is a shame the debate concluded before the trial started.

Bad news, I'm afraid. In a remarkable turn of events, it was actually quite mild overnight, and consequently there was no ice or snow this morning. As a fellow competitor said, "It's been a disappointing luge season so far." We continue to hope for the appropriate conditions - the cameras are waiting.

I just popped some flowers in a vase. Some were roses and therefore there were thorns. One punctured my finger. Blood EVERYWHERE! Ouch.

I've not been to many exhibitions in my life. I can remember going to the NEC once when I was a lot younger, and I've been to Earl's Court for plenty of concerts, but not proper exhibitions. So going to Ecobuild was quite interesting.

Three hours later, having waited over an hour for my last interviewee to turn up, it was less so. Let's be honest, I'm not much of an architect, and I think that was the fatal flaw in the day's events. It was pleasant enough for an hour or so, milling around the exhibits and interviewing a few people involved with the energy industry, but after that it dragged. That's despite having a swanky press badge attached to my coat, allowing me to indulge in leering at other people's badges, confident that at least I looked like I had a purpose. The managing editor (online) of Architects' Journal and a member of the Isle of Wight Council were just two of the distinguished guests to wander past.

Anyway, photos ought to liven up this dull account a bit. I had real trouble getting sound effects for my energy review piece at the exhibition, resorting in the end to the sound of rain hitting a solar panel outdoors - this one had the good fortune to be inside:

In fact, between the solar panel and this fountain and garden, the entrance to the exhibition was pretty top notch:

But that was nothing compared to some of the exhibits. This being the Ecobuild exhibition, the aim of the game for most of the exhibitors took the form of new housing concepts, be that heating, decoration, structure, design or planning. And some of those exhibitors wanted nothing more than to build their proposal in front of your very eyes. I give you the strawbale house, which does exactly what it says on the tin:

See, you think you've seen it all now. Afraid not. Next door but one from the house of straw, we have...

Yes, a house of hemp! The exhibitors took pains to stress that it was all manufactured legally...

I was going to stop there, but I've just been reminded of something. A certain individual I know uses the word 'chillax' in conversation. It's a hybrid of chill and relax, in case you couldn't tell, and it's one of the single most annoying sounds known to mankind, along with the sound of sniffing, the sound of babies crying, and the sound of James Blunt (hackneyed but true). This is an open letter to that individual, mentioning no Rachels - stop it. Otherwise I'm going to write you an online dating profile like I've already written someone else's...

It snowed this morning in Oxford, and spent the rest of day raining. The result is that all floors and pavements are soaking wet and, if tonight is anything like last night, they will be iced over tomorrow. In that spirit, it will be time for some homemade Olympic sports. First up will be converting the ramp that is now in Grove Quad into a luge/bobsled track. Pictures tomorrow, if we get things sorted...

Snow! How exciting. London is now even colder than Culham station yesterday. The snow is forecast to become sleet at around about the moment I go outside.

It never snows but it pours for Prince Charles, roundly lambasted by everyone except the Telegraph (quel surprise) this morning for his diaries and what not. The Mirror:

The truth is Prince Charles was born into a privileged position with a public platform of which ordinary people can only dream. He is supposed to be above politics. That includes party politics. Harking back to the days of empire or championing hunting with hounds is an intrusion when silence would serve the monarchy better.

[source: The Mirror - 'An abuse of privilege']

The Guardian:

Judging by his 1997 Hong Kong diary, released in court yesterday, the prince initially took to Tony Blair (a fact that the Mail on Sunday unaccountably chose to omit from its coverage). But even in 1997, the prince was beginning to rail against Labour for "being in such a hurry". Now put that, and the intervening years of very public hand-wringing, together with January's comments from the prince's office, praising David Cameron's first month in office as "amazing"; or with the Sunday Telegraph's claim that "senior officials at Clarence House are making no secret of their admiration for the youthful new Tory leader"; or with another report this month that the prince and Mr Cameron have had "a meeting of minds" in which "you couldn't put a wafer between them on most of the big issues". Some of these reports may just be Telegraph mischief. But the prince is a fool to allow this issue to fester.

[source: The Guardian - 'Time for a change']

And the Telegraph, Boris Johnson at the despatch box:

One after another, the self-interested editors of our media organisations line up to accuse him of being a headline seeker. What has prompted this orgy of abuse? Has he said that government ministers should not be driving 6-litre Jaguars? Has he complained about the destruction of the Green Belt? No: it is only when you read the papers quite carefully that you discover that the Prince has not said anything new at all. On the contrary, it turns out that the Mail has illicitly obtained his private diaries, his private diaries, and has splashed them over several pages, including some quite fruity stuff about the handover of Hong Kong.

[source: The Telegraph - 'Go on Charles: babble, rage, and ignore the treacherous toads']

Now Boris wins this debate through sheer force of being Boris Johnson, but he does actually have a point too, one I was going to make last night before I decided the media hadn't really had a go at Charles. Now they have, so I'm making it. You can't go nicking someone's diary, publish extracts, then turn around and accuse the individual concerned of meddling with politics and publicising his own causes. Granted Charles does occasionally speak up quite forcefully, but rarely with a view we wouldn't expect him to have. If the Pope can say what he likes, I don't see why Charles can't (let's face it newspaper editors get a column to themselves each morning, and I trust their judgement as much if not less than I trust that of Charles). Even the Guardian admits the published extracts in the Mail on Sunday carefully avoided the bit about Charles initially taking a shine to Tony Blair - if the media is so happy to pin its agenda blatently to its front cover, it is hypocritical to accuse Charles, far less influential than they, of doing the same.

Until last night I had forgotten that the above expression existed. I hadn't used it or heard it in such a long time and had neglected to remember how good it was! However, it has that element of passion about it that made me want to know where the expression/phrase/idiom came from. After a little bit of googling, it would appear that the phrase originated at the beginning of the twentieth century. Apparently the earliest examples relate to cattle ranching: cattle would be driven to rail heads in NW America. In 1939 a book was published by Paul Wellman with the title Trampling Herd: the Story of the Cattle Range in America it was stated, "In spite of hell and high water is a legacy of the cattle trail when the cowboys drove their horn-spiked masses of longhorns through high water at every river and continuous hell between.". So there we go.

Thanks to a Dayorama reader's Mum and the Times, I went to dinner last night for £5. It was a lovely evening. Four friends from Oxford, two of which I hadn't seen since June. The other (the Dayorama reader) I had seen in January (Sir John Soane Museum accomplice), but it seemed ages and ages away. It was lovely to catch up with them all. A few observations:

a) It's wonderful how four people, who lead completely different lives in London and haven't seen each other for a while, can all sit down and have a very enjoyable dinner where it feels like we have been having dinner in the same manner each week for the past four years.
b) Eating out for £5 is a wonderful idea... but I think it puts you off a restaurant, rather than endears you towards it. You get crap service, and naturally very unstimulating menu. But, tasty food all the same... and two courses for £5.
c) When you have grown up with a Mother like mine (bless her), you have never been able to understand why her little food fads have always left the home and entered eating out e.g. she will never buy a packeted chicken sandwich on the basis that you don't know where the chicken is from (battery hen etc). You've mocked her in the past. But what is inevitable? Every woman turns into her Mother. And what am I doing? I'm turning into my Mother. I wish I was actually, I'd lose about 3 stone. Anyway, for starter I had some roasted pepper (they weren't roasted, they were actually quite hard, but anyway) thing with tomatoes in the middle. But when I came to eat it, I couldn't touch the tomatoes. Why? Because I currently have a fad about organic tomatoes and don't think that I want to eat un-organic tomatoes because they are probably pumping goodness knows what into them. So I didn't eat the tomatoes. Similarly, in a restaurant the other month with my Uncle I asked the waiter if the salmon was organic before ordering. I detest un-organic salmon in all its bright pinkness. Help. I am my Mother.
d) I think I'm an alcoholic. Well, that's going a little far. I have a high alcohol tolerance. We had two bottles of wine between the four of us. So, 3ish glasses each. Did it touch the sides? No. Was I tipsy? No. Was I absolutely fine getting home? Absolutely. Other people? Feeling tipsy. There's a tolerance thing going on there, probably due to regular alcohol consumption. Oh well.
e) When women get together, amongst other things they discuss: men, men and men; s*x (I've put the asterisk as I'm not getting any more complaints from Ollie for dragging undesirable search strings to Dayorama); v*irginity; periods; circumcision; breast enlargements/reductions; dieting; men, men and men. It's a recipe for disaster... but a very fun evening!!
f) Actually with one bottle of wine + tip, the meal cost £15. There was then the share of another. Then £8 on a taxi home from the tube (an expense I will afford on the grounds of safety, even if not strictly necessary). That's £25+ easily. It makes you realise how good value that is, compared to a normal meal out!
g) Something totally irrelevant to this meal, but instead related to last weekend when Ollie came to Kent. Dialogue between Ollie and my Mum.
My Mum: Ollie, would you like anything to eat or drink (it was around lunch time)
Ollie: No thanks, I've had lunch
My Mum: OK. A Boots Meal Deal? What did you have in it?
Ollie: **Stumbles over what to say and goes bright red, including the ears**. How did you guess?
Amy: Because Ollie, you always have meal deals!
We then discussed which Boots in Victoria he purchased it from and how many points he managed to collect. Wonderful!

Goodness me, what a day. You know a day will not go down in your annals as the best of times when you get to see far more toilets than would routinely be the case. This has been such a day. I don't know what I ate that's done it, but since around about yesterday lunchtime I've been a slave to the public loo. Airport hotel, airport hotel again many times throughout the night, Virgin train back down south, Oxford station, and finally Victoria station. All remarkably nice toilets given my usual preconceptions about public facilities, I must say, although my view may be coloured by the sheer relief at finding each one (Victoria was the best 20p I've parted with in a long, long time).

Anyway, you probably didn't need to know that. Suffice to say I'm feeling a little better than around midnight last night, when I was talking to Amy J on MSN messenger. Suddenly I started shivering uncontrollably, and I mean shivering. I've never known anything like it, I could not physically stop myself for a good ten or fifteen minutes, my entire body convulsing. Since I was in mid-conversation on MSN, I had to slowly but surely eke out a message to Amy to explain why I was so quiet and why I was going offline. This being me, the message had to include no typos, which becomes tricky when one's hands are moving of their own accord, so it took a good three or four minutes to painfully type one sentence. I then buried myself under the covers and shivered myself to what I thought would be a decent sleep. Alas, alas.

Still, no rest for the squitted, and I had to interview the man in charge of nuclear fusion research in the UK this afternoon. He's based at Culham, where I'm reliably informed Amy K's dad used to work. I can now exclusively reveal that Culham is the single most desolate train station I've visited in my life. I've been on some quiet platforms in my time, notably Didcot Parkway at midnight, but Culham wins hands down. Observe:

Okay, that last one isn't Culham station, it's Amy J wearing a St Hugh's College Women's FC top in an ice cream shop in Oxford, where I met her this afternoon. But I needed something to put there, and we'll come back to her in a minute anyway. In the mean time, Culham - look at it. Not a soul on either platform and it was blowing an absolute gale, I swear the windchill factor was minus fifty degrees. Only the equally barren voice of the First Great Western Link announcement lady for company. Still, thank god I got back to the platform for 3pm, otherwise it was a two hour wait until the next train. Not the best served station in the country either!

So, Amy J, yes. A week ago the Mail on Sunday published an article about her dad (a member of the House of Lords, no less) which was, shall we say, less than complimentary. It involved a house in Botswana and while not repeating the allegations, which didn't appear as serious as the Mail were making out, suffice to say I'm told the no-win, no-fee lawyers are interested - not least because they included a photo of the house which seems to identify it quite clearly, right down to the house number, which neither Amy nor I are sure is a legally sound thing to do. Journalists, eh...

Ah, one more thing before I go. No, I tell a lie, three things. First, my dad's never used a cashpoint in his life. I discovered this yesterday when he looked at one in the hotel and read the 'Insert Card' sign. He asked me if that meant insert your hotel keycard. No, no, it doesn't mean that. Wonders will never cease.

Secondly, I've always fervently proclaimed my antipathy towards Apple, declaring that I wll never buy any of their products. And indeed that remains the case, but I never ruled out getting an Apple product for free as part of a subscription deal. I've signed up to Audible.co.uk, who provide audio books for download, and they sent me a free ipod shuffle as part of the deal. It looks very light and easy to use, and with none of my cash going directly into the palms of greasy Apple executives.

And finally, here I am traipsing round the country trying to find out about the energy crisis this country may or may not be in, when it turns out all we need to do is switch our computers off. At least once we all get the chance to order quantum computers off PC World, that is. It turns out at least one quantum computer being tested at the moment has done a decent job of its work while technically not switched on. For those well up on their quantum theory, the New Scientist reports:

The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a "superposition", a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger's cat to hit "Run".

Read more here, and have a lovely evening.

Apparently. On the 8th day, do you think that God sat down and thought, "what shall I do next"? I've created the night and day, the water, the dry land, the animals, the plants and the people. I know, I'll create a city out of biscuits. No, I don't think he did. But there are bible stories about the wise man building his house on the rocks and things, aren't there? It doesn't say anything about whether it would be wise to build a city out of biscuits though. Anyway, I don't know why I have gone off on such a tangent. This chap, Song Dong, creates cities from biscuits. I saw a clip on "This Morning", this afternoon (yes, I turned it on at 12.15pm), and there was Song proudly presenting his biscuit city. I've a good mind to trot along to Selfridges and see the real thing for myself. I might, but I've decided to give up sweets and pastries for Lent (I may change this idea)- so I'd have to go before next Weds as it could be too tempting, and also it's too cold right now to go anywhere. Just out of interest, why is Selfridges called Selfridges? Was there a Mr Selfridge, or did they begin my selling-fridges? I've looked on their website but the "flash media" element is rather flashy and confusing. Those who know me should have worked out precisely what mood I am in by now...! Off to the gym to burn off excess energy...

Sat here in the lobby of Bewley's Hotel near Manchester Airport, there's probably just time to regurgitate some interesting stories from today whilst I wait for my dad and friends to turn up.

The Social Affairs Unit, hot on the heels of its Pro-Test interview (*spit*), has come up with an article that deconstructs Kaiser Chiefs lyrics (there I go, dropping in some buzzwords for Google, as if we need it right now when Sol Campbell's breaking our backs, so to speak). Harry Phibbs, 'a journalist' no less, searches for the deeper political tensions underpinning their songs, and by thunder, they're all anti-government. There's a turn up for the books!

A quick headline I couldn't resist: 'Did early humans socialise to avoid getting eaten?' It is nice to know that in the days when I was fundamentally an antisocial creature, I was in fact simply allowing a few million years of gut instinct to take over, wisely deciding that school discos may involve cannibalism.

Nick Robinson's Newslog continues to prove the best reading I know online. His entire article on David Miliband is worth your time, but the closing paragraph appealed to me most:

I told you that nothing would happen whilst I was away. Apart from a ban on smoking in all public places; a vote which will have the effect of forcing people to carry ID cards; a huge defeat for Labour in a by-election; the banning of glorification of terror; the birth of a new Cameron and of the "dual Premiership" it was quiet enough and just the right time to abandon Westminster.

It's alright Nick, I looked after it for you. Read the rest of the article here.

Finally, naughty Chris Moyles, swearing on national radio! Although it's good to see him follow the pristine example of Micah Richards, the Manchester City defender who kept us in the FA Cup with a late, late goal on Sunday night, then opened his post-match interview - live on the BBC well before the watershed - with 'fucking hell, that was brilliant'. Good morning Mr Ofcom, welcome to BBC Towers, how lovely to see you again...

Well, I sincerely doubt that Ken Livingstone actually reads Dayorama, but remember my rant here about people eating on the tube? Well, I saw a sign on the tube today requesting that passengers don't eat smelly food. Yay. However, they also have signs requesting people not to have personal stereos too loud... and considering Ollie's post, it seems no one takes any notice. At least the sign is a thought in the right direction.

Trains. Wonderful creations. I'm sat on one now writing this, although by the time you're reading it I'll hopefully have disembarked (if you're reading this five years from now, I would certainly expect that to be the case, delayed though trains often are).

People. Wonderful creations. I'm sat on one now- no, wait, I'm not, but they're still pretty special. They do all sorts of stuff, like build trains for example, write books, play football, invent cures for diseases, or make music.

People on trains. Nightmare. Somehow, for more people than you might expect, what might be considered basic rules of engagement on a train are quite spectacularly bypassed.

For example, this morning I got on the 08:43 service from Streatham Common to London Victoria (delayed by two minutes, par for the course). I walked right the way down the platform so that I boarded the very first coach of the eight that hoved into view. It was rammed, so I found myself shoved up against the head of a woman whose hair had funny little white spots all over it, very reminiscent of nits. Time will tell on that one.

So people on trains are a bad idea in the first place because there are too many of them, all sat in seats that I would ideally be occupying, some of them harbouring parasites.

Then we immediately encounter the second reason why people on trains should be consigned to the waste bin and train designers sent back to the drawing board, to come up with a way of building trains so that I, and I alone, am allowed on them. People with MP3 players. No. Bloody hell, no! A rarity indeed is the owner of an MP3 player who can keep the thing at a volume charitable to those around them, and I include myself in this rant - but remember, the train is there for me, dammit, and not the gentleman sat three seats away from Nit Woman, who was listening to something involving a mouth organ, quite possibly Bruce Springsteen. The very fact that I can hazard an educated guess at what a man six feet away was listening to in his headphones is a clear indication that all is not right with the world when people are put on trains.

Note, at this stage, that his kind are by no means the worst offenders. If there were an Audible Nuisance category in the great Crufts of Crappy Commuters, it would be won by the chavvy teenagers who get on in little gangs and play music through the chuffing speakerphone on their MP3 mobile. There they sit, chatting away or trying to look cool in time to the music (synchronised cool, coming soon to an Olympics near you, if we get the stadium for it built in time, which we won't), intimidating the life out of everyone around them and generally making life a misery.

One day, when I particularly feel like dying a slow and agonising death at the end of a twelve inch blade, I will encounter a group of these individuals doing this very thing on a train, and I will make a stand. I will take out my own MP3 phone and select something a little more cultured: perhaps something classical, or Billy Joel or even bloody Coldplay for god's sake. And I'll play it on speakerphone over the top of their music. See how they like that. You'll know when I've tried this because it'll be all over the papers the following day when they find the body.

I've got one more hypothetical trick up my sleeve: this one's for the Audible Nuisance Class contender we've already mentioned, the bloke sat there blissfully unaware that his earphones are serenading an entire carriage. This is more common on the tube, where people turn the volume up in the noisy tunnels and then end up deafening themselves and the rest of us when the trains reach a halt in stations (or, more often than not, in the middle of the tunnel for half an hour).

My trick involves getting two or three more friends to come along for the ride, then finding one of these peculiar bastards (earphone offenders, not my friends) and preying on them. We'll wait until we've all picked up the rhythm of what they're listening to, and then we'll begin to dance. Usually it's the techno/d'n'b stuff that's easiest to pick up, so chances are we'll be going at it like we're at a rave. In the middle of the carriage, slowly rotating around the offender in question. I would imagine it wouldn't take long for the point to be made. If I get my hands on a camera crew during TV training next term, this is most definitely going to get a green light.

Right, where were we. Ah yes, why people should not be allowed anywhere near trains. The train I'm on now goes from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly, and I've got the shittiest seat in known history - worse, even, than Cuthbert's.* It's between two windows, so as the scenery flashes past I can see precisely nothing. For some reason I've become incredibly claustrophobic sat here, possibly because the lack of a window is interfering with my internet access, and frankly if I had Seasonal Affected Disorder my life right now would be a profound misery.

The reason I am sat in this seat is that smug bastards, including the man two rows away wearing a grey jumper who looks like Hitler crossed with Gary Neville, had reserved the rest, leaving me no choice. Except half the people who reserved seats never bothered to turn up for them (probably sat elsewhere on the train) so a load of latecomers have got lovely seats with nice big windows that I intentionally avoided, fearing a confrontation with Gary Hitler and his kind. If none of these people had ever been allowed near a train, this would not have been an issue.

So there we have it. Trains and people are fundamentally clever inventions, but like hamsters and vacuum cleaners, they should never cross paths. Except me. I am the exception that proves the rule.

* Cuthbert was a monk, and consequently a bishop, who lived on the island of Lindisfarne for a time in the seventh century. His seat was a plank of wood stretched between the island and a rocky outcrop, looking down into the choppy seas below. Cuthbert would edge himself out until positioned over a hole in the plank, and from there would do his daily business, so to speak.

Time for a round-up since I've not had time to pull my thoughts together for a while - starting with Amy's D of E bash in Kent on Saturday night.

The evening was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh's award, and was held at the Kent Showground in a rather large building which was not, thankfully, the marquee we had been dreading it would be on a particularly chilly night. I got over my initial exasperation at the flappy things that pass for a collar on dress shirts - mine wouldn't sit down properly like everyone else's, and it was messing with the bow tie - and enjoyed a lovely evening in the company of fine individuals and food.

Two of Amy's closest acquaintances got awards for their service to D of E, something she'll no doubt get in half a century's time judging by the conversation I had with two of her young charges, one of whom having been involved in an unforgettable incident involving illegal immigrants and a threat to eat the entire D of E party.

There was a laser light show to finish the evening, using one of the clever green lasers put to good use by The Australian Pink Floyd band in Oxford last year. I want one!

Sunday was the gig in Oxford, which went pretty well all things considered, even if the drum kit did fall apart on me early on. It was another battle of the bands and, indeed, another battle of the bands we didn't win, but it's always great to be playing, especially when it seems increasingly likely the band is breathing its last. We'll be going our separate ways this summer when the other three leave Oxford, so who knows what will happen, but I'm not convinced it'll be possible to keep going.

One person who didn't turn up to the gig was other Amy, an Oxford student (and therefore someone who had to travel considerably less far than my own mother, who came all the way from Somerset) who found herself otherwise engaged. In retaliation I'm therefore going to set aside this paragraph for a little ritual humiliation. Other Amy took the time instead to launch a miniature witch-hunt into the sexuality of a good friend of hers, and then succeeded once again in not telling the person she loves that she wants to go out with them. This saga has been running on for a number of weeks if not months now, and infuriatingly she comes within a whisker of asking this unwitting individual out time and time again, only to somehow blow it. I've had a friend like her before, called Simon (whose voice intriguingly sounds exactly like Amy's, but slightly deeper), who refused point blank to ask out a girl he liked back in Somerset. No matter how much badminton they played together, nothing doing. I despair. Take a chance! Roll the dice! At least get an answer, one way or the other. Rant over... for now.

Onwards, and it's a busy week ahead with more people to speak to. This week I'll hopefully be hearing from Dr Kevin Anderson at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Manchester, who's pencilled in for 2pm tomorrow before I head off to the Hall of Fame gala dinner at Manchester City FC (second outing for the black tie in four days, after two years of mothballs). Dr Anderson wrote a very good piece on the BBC News site a month ago on the UK's energy crisis, and I'll be following up on that with him.

Then back down to Culham, near Oxford, on Wednesday to interview Chris Llewellyn Smith, the man in charge of Britain's nuclear fusion research. Fusion isn't like the nuclear we use now, it's a futuristic, somewhat enigmatic technology that we're told will be mightily powerful and very safe. Alas, it's half a century away at least, assuming they can get it to work (they're building a new test facility in France to find out, I believe). I'll be asking Chris what the odds are that this will sort out our energy problems. I expect the answer is 'slim', for now. It's all very exciting because in order to get onto the Culham site I need my passport to prove my ID - access all areas, this journalism lark, I tell you.

On Thursday it's off to the EcoBuild exhibition at Earl's Court, home to a vast array of household renewable energy solutions. At 2pm I'll be speaking to both Gareth Ellis of the Solar Trade Association about how we harness the potential of the sun to power our homes, and then to Mari Martiskainen from the British Wind Energy Association. She's their Small Wind Officer, which I think is a great title, and she'll be setting out the conclusions she'd like to see the UK energy review reach. I'll also be asking both of them if the different forms of renewable energy are happy being lumped together in an age-old 'nature versus nuclear' debate, or if they're actually competitive in their own right - after all, if you think wind power is better than solar power and you're trying to capture the same market, why would you want consumers identifying the two of you as one rather vague whole?

Finally, a quick look at a couple of news stories I've seen. Unlikely Headline of the Week award to This Is Local London for 'End Illegal Treaty And Save Babar', which refers to terror suspect Babar Ahmad and not, as first thought, the loveable elephant king of same name. 'Man Killed Landlord With Crossbow' also caught the eye, and lodged itself in it, as did this Social Affairs Unit article on Pro-Test, the pro-animal-testing group formed by an Oxford student. Except in this case that means a student from the Oxford area, as in a 16 year old from Swindon, and not a student at Oxford University, which is what most national newspapers assumed when they reported it. Reading the article the individual concerned seems unduly preoccupied with ensuring he gets media coverage, which is a shame, because these things should be done out of genuine belief and not a desire for self-promotion; the media would have come flocking anyway.

David Irving, Holocaust denier, has been sentenced to 3 years in an Austrian jail. I'll just put this up for now, because I think this deserves a serious post and I need some time to put my thoughts together. I also have a historiography seminar tomorrow, and I'm sure there will be some strong views there too. Suffice to say, this is huge.

You see, this is what makes us British. Incredible. I wish I had as much passion as some of these people to campaign for the things I care most about.

Naturally I've been following the spread of bird flu - haven't most people? However, until the government issues any specific health warnings, I'm not going to do change my habits. Admittedly I don't think I'd go to a Bird Sanctuary anytime soon (and wouldn't anyway since the last time: went with a group of my Mum's school kids - about 80 of them aged 4-7 or something... I had about 5 in my care for the day who my Mum promised me were "sweet and lovely" etc... yeah, right... one of them was scared of birds and I had to drag this poor screaming girl all around a bird farm all day... we had to walk through loose geese and chickens... nightmare... I will never work with children or animals and it has put me off bird farms for life... ) and I will continue to buy organic eggs and poultry. I was therefore rather surprised to see a selection of books in WHSmith with titles such as Beat the Flu: How to Stay Healthy Through the Coming Bird Flu Pandemic. Just pop "bird flu" into an Amazon search to see what I mean. Should we be reading this? Is this scaremongering? Is this an easy way to make a bit of money? Or is it sensible? The questions remains.

One old lady chose the morning of last year's London bombings (round one) to die in an unbelievably horrific fashion:

The injuries sustained by Hilda Reinhart were so severe she had to be identified by her Nectar card, jewellery and CCTV footage, Westminster Coroners Court heard last Thursday.

Miss Reinhart of Fulwood Walk, West Hill, was attempting to cross Buckhold Road in Wandsworth at 9.55am on July 7 when she was run over by an articulated lorry, a second lorry and a small van.

The court heard how Miss Reinhart's brain and organs were strewn across the road in a statement from a London Ambulance Service paramedic.

[source: This Is Local London - 'Woman, 86, run over by two lorries and a van']

Apparently the lorry drivers knew nothing of the incident, since Miss Reinhart had failed to make sufficient impact on the vehicles for them to realise they'd hit something.

On a happier note there'll be a full report on last night's Duke of Edinburgh's award bash in Kent, with our very own Miss Amy Kennedy, from me in the near future (and possibly from her), not to mention something on tonight's Idiotchild gig in Oxford.

Up til now, the audio I've put up on here has usually been in the shape of extended interviews with people - just me and them, having what amounts to a five-minute fireside chat about the hot topic of the day. Once or twice there've been little one-minute segments, or one-minute fully prepared packages with little audio clips in them, narrated by me.

Here's something altogether new - an entire finished 20-minute bulletin, prepared by an entire 14-person LCC newsroom team. We're currently operating as BBC London with these things, so the show is styled as such with BBC London jingles and presentation. Scroll to the bottom of this post and press 'play' to hear it (if you're reading via RSS, you'll need to come to our website and view the original article to see the play/pause buttons and listen).

This particular programme is from Wednesday - the newsreader's my good friend Yana, and you'll find a package by me on the terrorism bill about two minutes into it. If you keep listening (and I appreciate not everyone can, or wants to, spend the time to do so!) you'll hear examples of work by a lot of other people. Not everything in the programme is perfect by any means, in fact it's probably fair to say none of it is one hundred per cent great, but we're all learning still so that's to be expected. It's definitely a good effort by everyone though, and gives you an idea of what we get up to. In reality, all those five-minute chats you hear me doing are gutted to provide two or three quick 15-second audio clips, and the full interviews never get aired. Cruel world, I know.

My Mum and I tried to cook dinner earlier... neither of us actually turned the gas on. I thought she had done it, she thought I had done it. Only about 10-15mins in did we realise that nothing was cooking and then began to wonder why... then we realised that there was no gas lit on the hob. A blond moment for me :: a grey moment for her. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

The crew in the newsroom, all hard at work - spot the Ollie.

Cor dear me, it's been a manic couple of days. You can tell we have our fully-working-newsroom days on Wednesdays and Thursdays because either a) I put all sorts of audio on the site or b) I go AWOL for 48 hours. This week, we got off at the 'B' stop, to paraphrase Whybird, a much underrated icon of children's television.

Not that I don't have audio to offer. In the can from the past couple of days we have:

Mark Field MP talking about the UK energy review and his pro-nuclear stance, based more than anything on the negatives of all other options outweighing the negatives of nuclear.

Dr Matt Genge of Imperial College London, discussing his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to analyse some space dust brought back from a comet by the NASA Stardust probe, the first cosmic dust samples to arrive in that fashion since the Apollo missions.

Colin Challen MP providing the opposing viewpoint on the UK energy review, arguing that nuclear makes no sense compared to the 'infinite, free' power offered by renewables (though conceding that supply could be 'intermittent').

Roger Evans, member of the London Assembly's environment committee (and member of just about every other committee, I've spoken to him before about transport issues) bemoaning the state of London's water pipes after two burst mains this morning, and pinning some of the blame on Thames Water.

Hilary Bennett, Thames Water spokeswoman, unsurprisingly refuting that point of view but admitting that it is 'unfortunate' for two main roads to have been flooded when London's in its worst