I've come home to my dad's for the weekend, which usually means smacking a spongey football round the living room while the adults try to watch telly (I don't count myself one of them yet). My little brother Harry's now four, and he's not the sort of opponent you want to accidentally beat, because the recriminations would surely be fatal. Many, many matches of living room football against Harry end in narrow but life-prolonging defeats.

Tonight I went downstairs and suffered my usual fate, going down 5-4, then my dad took over in my place. The match didn't finish because Harry, midway through, stubbed his toe and hobbled his tiny way over to the couch in early retirement. That's nothing out of the ordinary, but the subsequent diagnosis of the injury was. I suspect my dad said something I didn't hear to prompt him, but the next I heard, Harry had limped over to me claiming:

"Ollie, I've done my metatarsal."

Yes, first David Beckham, then Wayne Rooney, and now Harry Williams, a glorious trio of English footballing legends, all slain by that dastardly metatarsal injury. Notice how he's not only acquired quite a complicated footballer's injury, but equally he's successfully developed the knack of the footballer's press conference, whereby the phrase "done my metatarsal" is a perfectly admissible example of the English language, and where none of the people using the word "metatarsal" actually know what a metatarsal is or does, but they know it'll elicit a response.

At least it makes a change from his usual Power Rangers routine. Having watched a load of kids competing in a variety of youth cup finals at Cheltenham Town's ground earlier today - great fun, some cracking matches - it's safe to say Harry will be there sooner or later, metatarsal or no metatarsal. And then, the world had better watch out. If Harry's on the same pitch, your metatarsal is the least of your worries.

Hah - shows you how much I know.

I'd intended to write about how Labour seems to be imploding in a comedy manner but frankly I don't think my wit can beat reality...

Today, instead of working, I played lacrosse. I first played lacrosse last Sunday, then again last night, and today was the Cuppers tournament. Of course, I was actually meant to work. But, instead of being knocked out straight away, Lincoln's scratch team managed to win two games and progress to the quarter finals. So instead of getting back at half ten in the morning, I was back at half three this afternoon. Lacrosse is an excellent sport, which combines the speed of football with the skills of hockey, and comes fully recommended by me. Go play today! Alas, I can't continue to increase my participation in girls' sports, because Cuppers rounders is not mixed sexed. Shame.

(On another note, I'm also a fine shade of red around my face, as are the rest of the team. Low expectations meant that no-one brought sun cream.)

It's the NFL Draft today. After the 2004 draft, I wrote a one liner on Eli Manning that continues to be visited due to the magic of Google. There's been much debate this year, due to an outstanding group of picks and their various foibles (Leinart, Young, Bush, Wiliams, Ferguson, Hawk, etc.). And then everything was confused when the Texans took Mario Williams instead of Reggie Bush with the first pick. Probably the right call, as I said way back in a comment after on another blog after the Rose Bowl. So now the question is where will Leinart end up, and how far will he slide? Had he entered the draft last year, he could be playing in San Francisco right now, with a cool $25m in his pocket. Instead, I reckon he'll go to Oakland at pick 7 (we're currently at pick 5 with the Packers...).

National Condom Week's nearly upon us, where we rip open the seal and allow sexual health to roll its wholesome, lubricated self oh-so-smoothly over ourselves.

Or something like that. But perhaps not with an Atomic Kitten in the room. Kitten Liz McClarnon's coming to see me on Wednesday to record an interview promoting sexual health - more specifically, the importance of women insisting men use a condom. To quote from the accompanying press release:

"In a nutshell, National Condom Week will aim to arm young women with snappy responses to the lines men often trot out when refusing to wear a condom. The campaign theme is 'he says, you say'."

Okay, so this is where you come in. Liz is going to have plenty of those 'snappy responses' up her sleeve, so I need to have some superb lines to 'trot out' in order to properly test her. You're a bloke, you don't want to use a condom, and Liz is your target. Think of the best line you can for that situation, then email me: ollie dot williams at gmail dot com.

If it's good enough, I'll be sure to use it in the interview, which I hope you'll be able to hear on Dayorama shortly afterwards.

This little article here is just so true: how many un-used gadgets exist in the average family kitchen? I know for a fact that somewhere we have a soda stream thing (remember those? very 80s) rusting away, a yoghurt maker, a blender thing which is never used, a salad spinner, about three different coffee machines, a pasta maker and no doubt countless other random kitchen things. I have a juicer that I never use and my b/f's household in London have about three different types of blender/juicer which are rarely used. I have other friends with ice cream makers and chocolate fountains. Why do we buy this stuff? Why do people give us this rubbish? And what if you go beyond the kitchen to all those electronic things that were "oh such a good idea at the time". Just think next time!

So, I got taken apart a bit by a Harlem Globetrotter on Thursday. But Friday was a whole new day, and off I went into Manchester for 'Paralympic Day', a celebration of the Paralympic World Cup - it starts in Manchester on Monday.

There were plenty of schoolkids there along with Britain's top paralympic athletes, and I had great fun weaving between cyclists and runners young and old. But I couldn't help myself - the wheelchair basketball sent out its siren's call and over I went, helpless, ready to shred my sporting integrity once again.

And so it proved. I am as useless at basketball when the opponents are in wheelchairs as I am when the opponents are Harlem Globetrotters. Not that being in a wheelchair makes basketball any easier - far from it, I found it really tough getting the distance and trajectory right, not to mention the strain of moving around the court.

Michael "Wild Thing" Wilson, of the Harlem Globetrotters, stopped by on Thursday morning. I took him outside the building with a basketball and put him through his paces to see if he could live up to my exacting standards. He just about passed the test.

I was further humbled by wheelchair basketball players in the centre of Manchester today, accused by one of having a "good netball throw". Any man knows that's fighting talk. I also spoke to Matt Walker, a paralympic swimming champion from Stockport who's overcome mild cerebral palsy to set a new world record last week - he sounded really up for next week's Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, and he's got to be in with a fantastic chance of a gold medal.

Finally, at five to six tonight we had what was later referred to as a 'news moment'. A hit-and-run killer who knocked down a nine year old girl was given a fifteen month sentence; Phil Scolari announced he wasn't going for the England job; and Charles Clarke made a statement about the minor matter of foreign nationals released from prison, ignored, and then found to have re-offended. All this moments before our major evening news bulletin.

Pandemonium ensued, including two of us literally bouncing up and down in panic as two different newsreaders demanded to know where audio and story updates were. It was genuinely great fun, though as our news editor observed, an LCC newsroom would have collapsed and died at the sight of all that news at the last minute. We live and learn.

Just pop "art definition" or something into google and you get a few dictionary definitions for the word/concept "art". I suppose that the acts displayed here are just acceptable. I don't really understand why you want to have a giant hug-athon though. And for 15mins? Blimey, I like hugs but I wouldn't hug anyone for that long. I'd suffocate. And why Nottingham? I'm not sure I'd like to hug half the people in that City - they do have guns in their pockets, rather than just being pleased to see you.

And this just amuses me greatly. Talk about something which really is quintessentially English!

OK, I'll stop wasting time on BBC online now and get on with some work...

Hold the front page - I've just come up with a decent vox. What do the people of Manchester think about the news that Brazilian manager Phil Scolari's been offered the England job? The first person I approached outside couldn't speak English very well, he told me. I asked him where he was from.

"Brazil."

Thank you God for that minor miracle. He had just enough English to explain how Scolari's a great manager and he'd do a good job for England.

Personally I had a bit of a problem with the idea of Scolari as boss til I met another bloke about ten minutes later, a young guy bouncing down the street listening to his mp3 player. He knew everything about Phil Scolari and reeled off a list as long as your arm of the awards and trophies the man's won. Once he was done talking, I could find no reason why England shouldn't have Scolari managing them.

He certainly put up a better argument than another lady, who insisted she'd prefer an English manager. Why? "Well, English football team... English coach!" I asked why not Scolari since he'd taken Brazil to World Cup glory. "Um... very true. Very true."

Scolari it is, then.

Out on the streets of Manchester this morning canvassing for reaction to John Prescott's minor indiscretion. The copy of The Mirror I had with me included some gratuitously horrifying photos of his mistress unbuttoning his shirt. Surprisingly public opinion seemed to hold that Prescott could have done better, not vice versa.

The Government are trying to clamp down on ticket touts with a new code of conduct for ticket agencies. Tessa Jowell's asked them to be careful how many tickets they sell to one person, stop selling 'futures' - tickets which don't yet exist for evens far in the future - and blacklist known touts. The problem is the code's voluntary, and a spokesman for the box office at the MEN Arena told me some legislation might have been better.

And there are new crime figures out for Greater Manchester tomorrow. They're embargoed til midnight (because why let us tell you now, at a reasonable hour, when midnight makes so much more sense) so if you're that keen to find out what they are, this is neither the time nor the place. I spoke to a local community group ahead of tomorrow's morning bulletins though, finding out if their impressions of crime in Manchester are the same as the police force's. Without giving too much away, it seems like there's a genuine success story going on.

Tomorrow morning brings a Harlem Globetrotter to the studio, and it falls to me to stand on a chair and interview all 6' 5" of Globetrotter 'Goodwill Ambassador' Michael Wilson. Hopefully he'll bring a basketball with him and everyone can have fun watching him beat me all ends up. I enjoyed playing basketball at school once or twice but somehow, with a microphone in one hand as well, I don't think I'll be much of a match.

Meanwhile my friend Gabi (or Gab, or Gabby, or maybe even Gabz or Gabie, I never know which way to spell it - to think I deride people for getting 'Ollie' wrong) is off to interview David Cameron on the Metrolink in Bury. When I put it that way it suddenly sounds less glamorous. I'm reliably informed one of my other coursemates met him last week (and the Queen, for good measure). OJ's also brushed past him in a corridor, as I recall. That man gets everywhere! One wonders what colour the chameleon needs to turn in Bury to be sure of success...

Apparently, this is the new craze to sweep the nation... hmm, I'm not convinved.

Another hectic day - some more great stories though. (For the next few weeks this may become what-happened-in-Manchester-todayorama...)

- Altrincham FC are going to be relegated from the Football Conference after being docked eighteen points for fielding an ineligible player. But local MP Graham Brady's come storming to their rescue - he's written a formal letter of complaint to the FA. I spoke to him about the injustice to Altrincham and whether he thinks his campaign will have any effect. I pondered what Altrincham's future would be if his letter failed, and he just laughed a rather grim laugh. There's optimism.

- After the bomb blasts in Dahab yesterday, we've been keen to speak to any local people who happened to be over there at the time. Countless phone calls to tour operators and local scuba clubs (it's the thing to do in Dahab) later, it slowly and happily emerged no Mancunians had been near the line of fire. I did, however, speak to Dahab scuba instructor Ed Poore (British, not Mancunian - close enough), who'd been very close to the explosion. He insisted Dahab was no less safe than anywhere else in the current world climate, though he stressed good scuba training helped maintain an element of calm in the immediate aftermath!

- The Home Office have had a pretty rubbishy day following the admission that over a thousand foreign nationals held in UK prisons simply wandered off after their release, rather than facing the usual deportation checks. I spoke to Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, who of course considered it 'disappointing' but noted the prison service was stretched to its absolute limit. Stockport MP Andrew Stunell, a Lib Dem, agreed with that point but couldn't find room to forgive Home Secretary Charles Clarke for insisting he wouldn't resign. He told me the government had known about this back in October and were "hoping it could be swept under the carpet". If you do look under that carpet you'll probably find a few foreign nationals evading deportation...

A white envelope is posted in Fulham, London last Tuesday with a 58p stamp. It arrives at its destination (Kent)yesterday, six days later. The envelope looks as though it has gone through at least one hedge backwards and then chewed by a dog and dropped in a puddle. Since I need the contents of the envelope to prepare for my exam on Thursday my Mother put the old envelope inside the new envelope and a 49p stamp was placed on it. It was posted at 2pm yesterday and arrived at my flat in London by 11pm today. Now, there are clearly problems with the Royal Mail. Unpredictable without a doubt. The irony of the matter is that I had lunch with the person who sent me the envelope in the first place today, so she could have just given me the notes. Oh well, the dog-chewed envelope provided amusement.

I've had an excellent first day working for these two radio stations in Manchester. They're based in the Castlefield area, which I've always loved - it has the Rochdale canal running through it, among converted warehouses and a series of bridges remarkable for their understated beauty.

I get the bus into town from Moss Side, that most refined of Mancunian suburbs, then enjoy a twenty minute walk through Deansgate and along the canal out to work. It's a fine way to start a day, especially when there's that rarity, a sunny Manchester day. That reminds me of the new Beautiful South track, 'Manchester'. I tuned in to Radio Aire, the Yorkshire sister station of the two I'm working for, on the way over from Leeds yesterday. While I was listening the DJ insisted he would never play a song all about Manchester. Reach Manchester itself and the song is everywhere. The refrain? "If rain makes Britain great, then Manchester is greater."

The wet stuff held off in some style today though, long may this continue. As well as the sports bulletins at 5pm and 6pm, it was nice to be unleashed on some really interesting stories happening around here:

- the 12 year old boy who plunged 800 feet in a light aircraft, bounced twice on moorland and smashed into a wall, but miraculously emerged unscathed. I spoke to his dad who'd been watching the whole thing from the ground, not realising til the last minute that the plane had his son on board. Was his son now scared of flying? "He'd go back up there tomorrow if he could, but the wife won't let him!"

- and the Samaritans are using Manchester to pilot a new scheme where they use text messages to offer people help. You're promised a response within minutes. A spokeswoman for the charity told me they'd tested it at music festivals, although when I asked her how many people she expected to use the service, she admitted it was a "good question" - so we'll see how that pans out. On hearing you could now text the Samaritans your problems, my dad vowed to send a message asking why City are currently so crap.

You know you're dealing with old books when you have to get the librarian to cut the pages open.

Surely something everyone wants to do from time to time... perhaps you'd stop yourself from saying something to someone, or from not checking your rear view mirror before hitting that tree etc etc. In my case, from not paying enough attention to my S/bury shopping bag, causing it to slip out of my hand and leave a really messy pile of red Dolmio goo all over my floor. B*gger. My flat smells like an Italian restaurant. Could be worse I suppose. Now have a craving for pizza...

Minor hiccup from Channel 4 News last night. In their daily Snowmail news update, emailed out about a few hours before broadcast, they list all the items they expect to cover in their evening programme along with a brief summary. Last night's email got down as far as the sport, then read as follows:

In the sport with Lindsay, premiership leaders Chelsea are out of the FA cup after falling to a vastly superior Liverpool in the semifinal.

All well and good, but the email was sent at just before 5pm. The game between Chelsea and Liverpool hadn't actually kicked off.

The gaffe prompted this second email, titled "On our FA Cup premonition...", to be sent out about an hour later:

In tonight's snowmail, I jumped the gun a bit in describing an easy Liverpool win over Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final. We are not running a betting shop and I didn't have a premonition. A line was missed off which gave the Reds victory. Maybe it was wishful thinking from our newsroom...

As we go to air the game is only halfway through and 1-0 to Liverpool so sorry for causing any premature grief (for Chelsea fans) or celebrations (for Liverpool fans.

We will of course report the match latest on our programme at 6.30pm.

Liverpool did indeed win the game. No wonder Channel 4 have such a good record with exclusives when whatever they announce comes true...

My band played what is likely to be our final gig last night, back in Exeter College, Oxford, where it all started around three years ago. We've only played around ten to fifteen gigs in that time but it's been great fun, and fewer people than I expected have noticed during that time that I can't really drum very well.

I didn't really think about it until hammering out the final stages of our last song, and then I realised I probably wouldn't ever do this again - not with this band, perhaps not with any other band. And then it became a bit sad, but we had a great little crowd in front of us and it felt like a lovely ending to a band that, let's be honest, didn't set the world on fire but at least put in some good, honest effort and had fun along the way.

My enthusiastic tones, tinged with a little sadness, can be heard in the audioblog below, recorded outside the college just after we'd finished. Screaming groupies are notable in their absence.

Enjoy!

I'm on a Great Western service between the Westcountry and Reading - a special service starting in Taunton and calling everywhere (even Bridgwater, described as 'the Vietnam of Somerset' by my driving instructor). Every other train is being delayed after someone was run over near Exeter.

These journeys always seem to inspire something for Dayorama:

12 September 2003 - delays after someone's killed on the line (I don't seem to be a good luck charm for the rail network)

6 December 2004 - train carries out reversing manoeuvre, praises of new mp3 player sung

19 June 2005 - extolling the virtues of the train and the countryside, profiling folk at the bus stop

1 July 2005 - hiding in first class on another train carrying out a reversing manoeuvre

This one's not reduced itself to reversing down the line yet, but it can only be a matter of time. We've got the delights of Yatton to get through before even reaching Bristol, then across through Swindon to Reading. Then to Stokenchurch, Oxford, Stokenchurch again, Leeds, and arriving into Manchester Piccadilly around lunchtime tomorrow. Not all on the same train, mind.

There's three weeks on placement in Manchester coming up, reporting for a commercial radio station by day and sleeping on someone's floor in university accommodation by night, so appearances on Dayorama will likely be fairly few for a while.

Right, now look. I'm not bitter about failing my driving test this afternoon, I'm really not. These things happen. I know I can drive and it's unfortunate that this wasn't a view shared by those in the car for that thirty-minute period. We'll see if we can reach a consensus in mid-May instead.

But how does that git Doherty get away with it? Not only must he somehow have procured a driving licence at some point, to my absolute disbelief given my current lack thereof, but every time he turns up in court charged with a variety of offences, he always ends up back out in the car! With drugs!

Where's the justice in that, eh? The guy was given a driving ban only yesterday from Thames Magistrates' Court along with a supervision order and drugs rehab - before the day was over he'd been arrested again. There were 'substances' in his car last November, he was arrested for driving under the influence this January, he's arrested three times in a day later the same month, then arrested a month later on suspicion of stealing a car, and still the man's inside a car - with a 50/50 chance of having been at the wheel.

I've no qualms with the system for stopping me getting my licence today, but I'd like to know how that system simultaneously facilitates the continued presence behind the wheel of one of the most notorious drug addicts of modern times. I am reminded of the fourteen year old banned from driving the other week. Under what circumstances can a fourteen year old be further banned from doing something they are demonstrably and unequivocally banned from doing in the first place? It's that which grates. Roll on May.

(For the record, I was failed for having incurred four minor faults on steering, otherwise I was fine. Probably one of the least dangerous fails in the history of driving, but a fail nonetheless. I take comfort in the sheer number of remarkably brilliant, clever people only too willing to volunteer the number of times they failed. We'll knock it on the head eventually, eh...)

Mother nature is a giddy, giddy thing. Apparently a silver-laced Wyandotte hen - I'm assuming that is a type/breed of chicken- has changed sex. This phenomenon is usually reserved for fish and things, but now this hen has changed to a cockerel. The science of it all seems to have something to do with an over production of testosterone by the hen and therefore the hen acquiring the physical characteristics of a cockerel. So it doesn't actually have a "sex change" in the sense of developing male sexual organs, but even so it is now a cock not a hen. As the report in the Guardian aptly describes it - "A cock without a cock" so to speak. Anyway, it's amusing. Imagine if you owned a egg-laying bird one day, and then the next it was waking you up at the crack of dawn and crowing away.

If you fancy a chuckle at the expense of Ben and Jerry's - of ice cream fame - I'd click here.

Thought the spectre of newsreaders in bunny ears had disappeared with the demise of L!ve TV? Think again. Oh how I wish I could get a screengrab (I've tried, I can't), a still image, something to commemorate the phenomenon of Felixstowe TV's Ruth Dugdall reading the news in a fetching pair of rabbit lugholes. Instead you'll just have to go and watch the bulletin before it disappears into the sands of time.

Felixstowe TV is one of the new breed of ultra-local TV stations making good use of the internet (guess who's been researching their little essay about this for their course). There's a blog about it here, too, written by its creator Chris Gosling.

When you were at school, did you ever have design/tech lessons where you made a marble run? Get some of those ubiquitous, thin sticks of wood, set them up into a little course for the marble to trundle down, and off we go. I devised "fantasy greyhound racing" when I was about ten, based on a similar concept of a ramp, a load of marbles, and a concrete path "race course" for the marbles/dogs to run along (that was the kind of thing I did when I was ten). I think we managed about three races before a teacher suspected a mildly illegal betting syndicate and closed us down. No marbles were hurt.

Despite that revelation, at least I'm not going to be the saddest individual in this post. Someone, somewhere, has taken the time to set up a whole series of unbelievably intricate, glorified marble runs. Then they've filmed them in action. Then they've added a penny-whistle/glockenspiel combo soundtrack, complete with a (distressingly catchy) jingle that's played in between each clip. And that's a still from the video above, showing our unseen protagonist about to poke an unsuspecting marble in the general direction of a kettle. Yes, a kettle.

Click here to watch the full video and see all the other intricate designs. Watch those marbles go! I've just finished all thirteen minutes of marble action. On second thoughts, that probably restores my "saddest individual" status for some time to come.

Still, we could be in the 1980s, a true pinnacle of geekery. I found an old Rubik's Cube guide on a bookshelf here earlier (it's not mine, I hasten to add). "At last! The solution!", proclaims the front cover to "world famous cube-master" Don Taylor's book ("don't be a square! Join the cubists!", it says on the back). Inside is the complete solution to the cube along with other tricks to try and games to play with friends, plus challenges like this:

"If you have worked out a complete solution, how fast can you do it? Can you break the three-minute barrier? If you can solve it in less than ninety seconds, you've joined the ranks of world-class professional cubists."

Thank the lord for that. No matter how odd watching a video about marble runs may be, we'll never reach the dizzying lows of world-class professional cubists.

Beautiful piece of advert placement for Nivea on Key 103 just now. We were subjected to thirty seconds of advertising for Crazy Frog-esque ringtones ranging from gerbils to terrapins, all of whom gave off the usual helium-tastic insanity-inducing noises. You know exactly the kind of advert this is, an onslaught of pure noise peppered with numbers to call and hidden charges mentioned oh-so-briefly.

But it eventually came to end, praise be. Cue the Nivea ad:

"Life has enough irritants. Don't let your skin be one of them."

Two films to recommend tonight - the first is Ice Age 2 (or Ice Age: The Meltdown if we're being pedantic), which is good harmless fun involving various animals trying to escape an imminent flood. There's two mammoths, one of whom thinks she's actually a possum, two possums who are possums (possi? A posse of possi? Possibly), and an adorable rat type thing - 'Scrat' - whose epic attempts to capture a lone acorn are interspersed throughout the movie.

I recall reading a review a while back claiming these Scrat moments were a masterclass in comedy, and that review wasn't wrong. I spent most of the film enjoyably entertained by the main storyline - it never takes much to keep me happy in a cinema - but all the while, at the back of my mind, I was counting down the seconds til Scrat and his acorn came back. I recommend the film on that basis alone. Forget the flood and the impending doom of many hundreds of animals - it's the rat and the acorn you'll be worrying about.

As yet unreleased but promised in the near future is The Promise, which needless to say looks promising. You can view the trailer here. It looks along much the same lines as Hero and House Of Flying Daggers, both brilliant movies with gorgeous scenery and noticeably exquisite use of colour. It's also obvious from the trailer that we can expect another helping of magical set pieces involving hundreds of people on-screen, always a feast for the eyes.

Oh and finally, if you're in need of something to listen to tonight, may I recommend Radio Jackie - click here to listen. On-the-hour news bulletins from my friend Rachel too (you can even see a tiny photo of her on their website, although I'm sure I can find far worse, maybe here). We've come a long way since the day we first got our recording equipment last October.

"It's the news that matters in Surrey," she tells me. "Like the end of the K5 bus route." Don't even try to tell me you're not interested now. Off you go and listen.

Do excuse the dodgy quality of the image above - it's composed of screengrabs from an online version of Labour's party political broadcast, to be shown tonight.

Admitting during the broadcast that the David Cameron campaign (yes, come on, that's him up there being shown as a chameleon) has so far "worked a treat", Labour have decided to break out Dave's much-feared "Punch and Judy politics". The video's no more than a character assassination, with not one mention of any Labour personality, policy or priority. The philosophy is not reasons to vote Labour; it's a reason not to vote Conservative.

The Guardian's news blog has some thoughts on it, along with a few interesting comments attached.

You can watch the movie here, at the snappily entitled davethechameleon.com. We are promised more next week. I personally found the video quite amusing, if not politically persuasive - but then I don't find anyone politically persuasive, unless Tamsin Greig intends becoming a candidate any time soon.

The salaries of top BBC Radio 2 stars have been leaked to The Mirror, a week after the salaries of their Radio 1 colleagues appeared in The Sun.

You might expect the BBC to keep very quiet about this; you might expect the corporation to fight back and argue the stars are worth the money. Instead BBC News Interactive have taken the following stance: "well look what doctors get paid!"

You have £250,000 going spare. Your options are:

a) one doctor b) Jo Whiley

Decide. (I actually think it's a tricky one. Technically Jo provides a service to far more people than a single doctor can...)

If you were training in medicine at St George's Hospital in Tooting, you'd need to complete online feedback forms for each stage of your course.

You're given a special link to access the feedback forms, since if you don't fill them in, I'm told you can't advance to the next stage of the course. Except that link doesn't work for lots of people. So you find another, alternative link, and somehow manage to get in, otherwise you won't pass the exams you're facing this week.

You're then faced with the feedback forms. However, some of the assessments the students take are also done online, using forms you fill out which are marked automatically as you go along. The feedback forms use the same templates for each web page.

That means your feedback gets "marked" as you go along, since the computer knows no different, it's just following the template. Which in turn means a friend of mine just received 0 marks out of a possible 1 for agreeing with this statement:

"The doctors here are ethical."

Apparently they're not ethical - but at least they're honest about it.

Mildly relevant title based on the adorable Tamsin Greig, star of both shows.

It's 0th week. That means I have only ten weeks left of my time at Oxford. In the next ten weeks, I will have handed in two extended essays, researched, written and submitted a thesis, and revised and sat an exam. Good. I'm currently editing said essays, due on Friday (but which need to be done before then), and unfortunately I have to cut one of my favourite lines. This is from the diary of William Maclay, who was a Senator from Pennsylvania during the first US Congress. It recounts a conversation he had with Vice President Adams:

After the House adjourned the Vice-President took me to one side, declared how much he was for an efficient Government, how much he respected General Washington, and much of that kind. I told him I would yield to no person in respect to General Washington; that our common friends would perhaps one day inform him that I was not wanting in respect to himself [Adams]; that my wishes for an efficient Government were as high as any man's, and begged him to believe that I did myself great violence when I opposed him in the chair, and nothing but a sense of duty could force me to it. He got on the subject of checks to government and the balances of power. His tale was long. He seemed to expect some answer. I caught at the last word, and said undoubtedly without a balance there could be no equilibrium, and so left him hanging in geometry.

Wonderful. A shame it the geometry bit has to go (it's the respect to George Washington that's important).

[Disclaimer: When I first came across this passage, I thought I should post about it. I can't remember if I did. If you've already seen it, my apologies.]

My mum went on holiday to East Anglia last week, and she came back bearing the gift of a mock Anglo-Saxon drinking vessel. (If you've not been around these parts long, I spent the vast majority of my degree studying all things Saxon.) It's beautiful and functional, crafted out of leather and pitch.

Being my curious self, I vaguely wondered what precisely pitch is, so I went on a hunt for it online. The Wikipedia article's here, but I'm honest enough to know you really don't care about pitch. Instead have a look at the Pitch Drop Experiment, which I found far more interesting (and it tells you all you need to know about pitch, too):

Here's the idea:

The pitch drop experiment is a long-term experiment which measures the flow of a piece of pitch over many years.

The experiment began in 1927 when Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland in Brisbane poured a sample of pitch into a sealed funnel and allowed it to settle for three years. In 1930, the seal at the neck of the funnel was broken, allowing the pitch to start flowing. Large droplets form and fall over the period of about a decade. The eighth drop fell on November 28, 2000, allowing experimenters to calculate that the pitch has a viscosity approximately 100 billion times that of water.

This is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's longest continuously running laboratory experiment, and it is expected that there is enough pitch in the funnel to allow it to continue for at least another hundred years.

In October 2005, John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, a parody of the Nobel Prize, for the pitch drop experiment.

[source: Wikipedia - 'Pitch drop experiment']

I think an Ig Nobel is a little unkind - it's the sort of ultimately near-useless but quite interesting experiment that makes science attractive to a lot of people. Would you rather read the boring article on what pitch is or is not, or get the general idea from looking at the experiment?

And more to the point, does this mean the pitch lining my Saxon drinking vessel will slowly but surely, over the years, rub away into my drinks, find its way into my stomach and gradually coat my intestines?

Only time, if I live long enough for the pitch to bother moving, will tell.

At least thirty-four people die in Iraq, a British soldier who died there on Saturday is named, thirty-one people are hurt in an explosion in Istanbul, a man's shot dead by police in Northern Ireland, people are killed as a train and truck collide in Greece, and there's extensive flooding in the Balkans.

Still believe in God? Happy Easter.

Talking to my friend Colin about this, it's made me wonder what a society would be like without any form of religion. No churches, no shared form of spirituality. You might say we're coming close to one now in the UK but we're not really - the entire spiritual system from local parish churches through to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope is far too influential for that to be the case.

Is it possible to have a functioning society that resembles ours, minus the religious side to life? Or not?

Is it likely to happen in future now that, as Colin says, we've "had religion and come out the other side"? And is that good or bad?

If we had comments working you could let me know, but we don't, so you can't. You can however email me (address on the 'about' page). And in the mean time I'll try to get a TV series about it commissioned (how do you even go about doing that? It'd be a lot of fun...).

The BBC are reporting that digging has begun to unearth a suspected pyramid in the Bosnian countryside. (I love it when the BBC suspect things. Last week they reported a ferry colliding with a "suspected whale", giving me visions of the poor thing up before the beak charged with Being A Whale under the 1984 Oceangoing Mammal Offences Act.)

This is a story that's been around for a while (here in October last year, and here in January this year), as I'm sure the pyramid has too. And here is the dodgy-looking hill in question:

Apparently the pyramid theory's been engrained in local legend for many years. In the words of Semir Osmanagic, who's spent fifteen years looking at South American pyramids before noticing this oddity, "you don't have to be an expert to realise what this is". And he's right - it's a hill. But he's also right in that it's looking pretty shifty, isn't it? It couldn't look more like a concealed pyramid if it tried. There's more evidence, too:

Initial excavations have revealed a narrow entrance to what could be an underground network of tunnels. On Friday, a team of rescue workers from a local coal mine, followed by archaeologists and geologists examined the tunnel, thought to be 2.4 miles (3.8km) long.

The team found two intersections with other tunnels leading off to the left and right. Their conclusion was that it had to be man-made. "This is definitely not a natural formation," said geologist Nadja Nukic.

Satellite photographs and thermal imaging revealed two other, smaller pyramid-shaped hills in the Visoko Valley, which archaeologists believe the tunnels could lead to.

[source: BBC News - 'Dig for ancient pyramid in Bosnia']

Of course, the question now arises: what is a (suspected) pyramid doing there? Which lost civilization - extremely bloody lost, in fact, considering where all the other pyramids are - came up with it? What was the point? And why underneath a hill? What's the bleedin' point of a pyramid if you hide the sod with sod? The Egyptians at least had the right idea with the whole prominent-display, get-the-tourists-in-after-millennia-have-passed routine. The Bosnians, alas, have failed miserably on that score. Whoever came up with this one was a complete hillock.

OK, so it's not quite Easter Sunday. In fact, it's "Easter Saturday". Apparently. It's not really Easter Saturday you know, because Easter Saturday, technically, is next Saturday. But nevermind. Convention over religion. I suppose I'd best pop off to bed - Holy Communion at 8am tomorrow... but someone had to post!

I met some friends from school last night in Maidstone (see earlier post). This was an enjoyable evening - and of course descended into the wretched "I have never" game. Highly amusing when you're not drinking! Anyway the pub that was chosen (not by me, I hasten to add) for our rendezvous was the local Weatherspoons and it simply made me feel old. It was full of girls/boys aged about 16. The girls looked like slappers and the lads looked pubescent. I left about 10.30pm and needed to walk about 500m to where I had parked the car. You think I walked this on my own? No way. There was a taxi rank opposite the pub and I quite happily parted with £5 so that the driver took me to the door of my car. You think George St in Oxford was bad sometimes? Youths on corners, police around and the odd scuffle? That’s nothing. The gangs loitering around Maidstone town centre may have been about 6yrs younger than me, but I was still scared. And I live in the East End of London for goodness sake! The thing is, I’ve got used to always being with someone in London – and if I’m not with someone else, I get a taxi home from the tube when it is dark. You think I’m going to change this, just because I’m in the town where I went to school? I think not. Scary stuff.

Do you know how much car insurance costs? OK so I am only 22 and since I have always been a "named driver" on my Mother's car I have no "no claims bonus" but... a quote of £1444.75. You must be joking. On a 3yr old Clio? Jeez. Luckily have managed to get on for £950... Direct Line... friendly and efficient staff etc etc. But honestly, nearly had a heart attack at the first quote. Blimey.

Am off seeing friends from school today - coffee with one friend earlier and drinks with another bunch tonight. It's all go. In other news, Kent is quite cold and windy. I'm also on a 2-week crash diet, so I'm eating lettuce and tuna until it comes out of my ears... hilarious. Saves the hassle of actually "dieting" for a prolongued period though. A quick crash and all will be well. And anyway, a report in the Guardian today reckons curves are healthy. Fantastic! That's all. Incidentally, did you know that there are no white chicken eggs any more? The shells are always brown. That means when you come to paint your blown egg this Easter you have to start with a brown background, not a white one. Even our chickens are now multi-cultural.

I watched about fifteen minutes of today's 6.30 ITN bulletin, for the first time in some years. I've always been a BBC or Channel 4 man, but I had remembered ITN as being a solid alternative. Today corrected that assumption. In the course of fifteen minutes, we had a story about the airing of cockpit tapes of Flight 93, an investigation into renewable energy homes, using a video diary from the children of a handpicked family, a report on Harry's passing out parade, and a report on the Herceptin ruling. Only the last was treated with any real degree of appropriate seriousness. The Flight 93 report was an excuse for dramatic re-interpretive visual effects of what happened inside the plane, while the Sandhurst story was a typical royal correspondent's piece. (To be fair, I'm usually unimpressed when the Nicholas Witchell pops up on the screen as well, so it's not just ITN.) But the eco-home investigation just smacked of an overly thought through "inventive" piece. I can imagine them in the editorial room. "How can we make people more interested in the news?" "Make it like Big Brother!" "Excellent, excellent." It lacked a clear argument, had too many fancy visual tricks to try and make the story more interactive/relevant, and was, quite frankly, amateur. I particularly disliked the link that followed the story, which reminded us that ITN was holding a competition, which we could enter online, to win a hybrid eco car. (Cue picture of a Honda Insight, with "Hybrid" on its number plate.)

Since when did news broadcasts turn into Family Fortunes? My word, the BBC is far from perfect and riddled with its own problems, but I cannot believe that what should be a serious bulletin has been effectively turned into tabloid news. Now, I believe, and circulation proves, that there is clearly a place for tabloid journalism, and I am a regular reader of the Sun and the News of the World. Both satisfy my low expectations. But did I miss the memo sent out by ITN that promised news in the style of The X Factor?

O tempora!... O Williams? (I only hope you raise the bar!)

For a long, long time at LCC, there was a certain exhibition of photos on the walls leading to and from our media block. That's hardly unusual, there's exhibitions going on all the time. But this one was a bit different - it showed images of various people reaching the point of climax.

I never particularly warmed to this as a means of welcoming me each morning. Most of the participants are not, in my humble opinion, of an overly attractive nature. And while none of the bodily organs involved in the process were on view, the looks on their faces are enough for anyone to put their morning flapjack off.

I thought I'd seen the last of this chamber of horrors, but no. It's come up at The Toilet Gallery at Kingston University, presumably these poor volunteers having not received enough, er, 'exposure' in the LCC corridors. Follow the link to look at some of the images - the last thing I'm going to do is put one on Dayorama, and I'll be avoiding Kingston like the plague for the rest of this month... (via Londonist, who deserve to pay for what they've done by finding this).

Clever stuff from the BBC regarding 'citizen journalism' today. There's been a scaffolding collapse in Milton Keynes, and the Beeb have a related photo gallery displayed on the news front page, showing various images of the collapse and its aftermath. It seems they've all been taken by 'citizen journalists', i.e. Joe Publics with phone cameras and the like. The BBC have taken the decision to bung all these photos in one gallery to show different views of the incident from people on the scene, and it works really well.

To my mind that treatment definitely complements the accompanying full, professionally-produced report, rather than threatening it. The report pulls together a video clip of a police statement, full details of the incident, a map, eyewitness statements, and quotes from the ambulance service. I don't think any 'citizen journalists' have the resources at their disposal to get that report online that quickly, let alone the authority the BBC name brings to it.

I've got to write an essay on how the internet's affecting broadcasting for my course, so you might hear more about this in the near future. It's interesting stuff but I don't think broadcasters are anything like as threatened as some people might have you believe.

Photo courtesy of Chris Valentine's flickr stream.

UPDATE: I hadn't noticed this before I wrote the above yesterday, but the scaffold collapse story and its related 'citizen journalism' were mentioned on the BBC NewsWatch site that afternoon, in very similar terms.

Matthew Eltringham, Assistant Editor, Interactivity, had the following to say:

The value of user generated content as a source of amazing news material was underlined on Tuesday, when scaffolding on a building in Milton Keynes collapsed.

Within minutes a trickle then a flood of pictures of the incident came into our inbox. While others were left with maps of the area, News 24 were able to show scores of images of the wreckage.

So the initial small team of three producers that had been looking after user generated content since June, last week expanded to six. And they're now open for business longer too, from 0700 to 2300, seven days a week.

The bigger team means we can provide more opportunities for citizen journalists to send their material to the BBC - and get more of it on air and on the website. We can publish more pictures and run more personal accounts.

[source: BBC NewsWatch - 'Citizen journalists challenge BBC']

My silly comments continue. Ever heard of a "rectangular square"? Hmm. Well, it exists in my vocabulary for describing an object.

We've all had a relaxing time with my Aunt although it feels like Easter has come and gone. The North was rather cold, as ever. And it rained. Oh, and I got rather broody over my cousin's baby.

So, what do you think those are? Sheds for park-keeping equipment? Electricity substation houses? Public toilets?

They're actually entrances to a network of underground tunnels built beneath Cold War Manchester:

Manchester Guardian is an underground telephone exchange in the centre of Manchester built in 1954. It is 112 feet (34m) below ground and cost £4 million to construct. The main tunnel, one thousand feet long and twenty-five feet wide (300m by 7m), lies below buildings in Back George Street, linking up to an anonymous and unmarked surface building containing the entrance lifts and ventilator shafts. There are also access shafts in the Rutherford telephone exchange in George Street.

Its purpose was to resist a Hiroshima sized twenty-kiloton atom bomb, and preserve essential communications links even if the centre of Manchester had been flattened.

[source: Duncan Campbell, 'War Plan UK: The Secret Truth About Britain's "Civil Defence"']

Below ground, it all looked (and still looks, fifty years later) like this:

This website explains how the tunnels came to be and includes more photos as well as information from current owners British Telecom.

Rumours abound that a similar underground network, possibly even the remains of an old street, lies beneath central London. If anyone happens to know more about that, I'd be intrigued...

It's now Sunday lunchtime and I'm still watching the Masters golf (there was a break for sleep, I assure you). Occasionally the footage of various golfers cuts to views of the scenery, presumably because the US feed the BBC are using cuts to adverts or such like. When this happens, the UK commentators have to fill a little time.

These moments bring out the best in commentators. During cricket matches, long stretches without action - if rain stops play, or in a break for drinks - encourage commentators to wander off on all manner of subjects. Test Match Special's crew are famed for their tendency to rely on red buses, pigeons and chocolate cake in the absence of any cricket.

Back at the golf, and on the most recent occasion of a cut to scenery, we found ourselves following a bird of prey as it circled high up in the Augusta sky. Cue our commentators: massively experienced pro Sam Torrance, and BBC regular Peter Alliss, who shares a little personal experience.

Alliss: "He's out searching for his breakfast, and he's not after a blueberry muffin, I can tell you. What a beautiful creature.

"Cruel, but beautiful.

(Wistfully) "Like a few people I've met over the years."

(Short pause)

Torrance: "Here's David Howell at the eleventh..."

My mum's gone away on holiday to East Anglia for a week, so I'm left house-sitting (and looking after the dog). This does have advantages - so far, the chief one I've discovered is the ability to take her rather swish surround sound to task.

Somehow, whenever we watch a DVD here, my mum finds it within herself to spend ten minutes faffing around with the remote control to get the surround sound working properly. I sat down to watch Howl's Moving Castle tonight and had the surround working like a charm in under thirty seconds. I'll be giving her a lesson when she gets home... (of course long before I get the chance to do that, I'll have been shot for so much as suggesting there are advantages to her absence. They are far outweighed by that absence itself, honest.)

The surround sound is now getting put to use for the golf coverage. This is the first time I've tried watching golf with speakers all around me - I don't really watch golf, let alone with this kind of technology in tow - and it's really pretty damn good. Whenever anyone sinks a putt, people behind me applaud while the commentators in front of me describe the action. It's remarkably immersive. Gary Lineker (since when was he the BBC's head golf honcho?) is now talking to someone who looks like they might be Gary Player, and there's a delicate ripple of background noise by my right ear. It's like sitting by the side of the course. Albeit on a plush sofa with a fridge ten feet away. Even better.

I realise this is hardly a groundbreaking step for mankind to those of you who already possess this kind of thing, but not being lucky or rich enough to own either a new car or surround sound, I felt the need to indulge myself. Speaking of which, now there's no one else in the house for a week, I'm going to polish off the remains of two different tubs of Ben & Jerry's. Sergio Garcia, meet Cherry Garcia.

How to enter a 2006 Renault Clio:

1. ensure you have the "card" on or about your person; and
2. break the infra-red beam on the door-handle with your hand.

How to start said car:

1. depress the brake;
2. push the "stop/start" button;
3. release foot from brake;
4. put car into gear and release handbrake; and
5. accelerate away.

It's all incredibly high-tech! And a very fun and exciting car to drive. Thankfully, it is still "girly" enough to have a mirror on the driver's sun visa. If this wasn't enough, when you pull the visa down a light comes on - just in case it is a bit dark to apply that mascara properly at traffic lights (and no, don't have a fit, I don't actually do this - but at least I could if I wanted to). So that's been the highlight of my day. The car's inaugural journey will be tomorrow though- a trip on the M25, M1 and M6 up to Cheshire. Let's hope it performs on the open road. But the question remains: is my Aunt's driveway good enough for the car? (those in the know about how much the driveway cost can have a chuckle at that remark...) My Dad are also going to take it driving in France later this year... heaven help us all.

Actually, saying that picking the car up was the highlight of my day isn't actually saying much. What else have I done? Well, I've ploughed on with my wretched research project. You know those times during Oxford when it was about 9.30pm in the evening and you were sitting, bored stupid in the Rad Cam? Just willing the book you had to read to disappear and the little man ring the bell so you could head for a G+T? This research project is like that. But worse. Because at least Oxford was intellectually challenging, rather than just a competition of "user" versus "search engine". If I see the "No Search Results Found" screen again, I will scream. That aside, I've popped Beechams. I have my standard "end of term" cold. Oh and then I watched Sir OJ fall. My father and I placed a bet of £5 via William Hill this morning... and then saw it disappear. Oh well. My Aunt won something, as did someone I know aged 14... hmm. Lucky bastards. Right. Back to that research on sewerage undertakers…

As confirmed by OJ's somewhat brief comment just now following his initial post here, 'Sir OJ' failed to make it to the end of today's Grand National.

Here he is in all his blurred TV-screengrab glory, plummeting to the ground after the twenty-second fence:

I did briefly contemplate placing a small bet on 'Nil Desperandum' - who did at least finish fourth, a whisker away from third - but didn't bother in the end. Probably just as well. Who would put money on a stupidly named horse ('Numbersixvalverde') ridden by a stupidly named jockey ('Slippers' Madden)?

Elsewhere, my article in the Telegraph Weekend section finally appeared. Well, I say 'my' article, my research at least. OJ (the man, not the horse) considers it a shame there's no credit in it for me. He hasn't thought this through. Had they put my name against an article on marathon running equipment, they'd have immediately invalidated any opinion expressed in the newspaper on grounds of absurdity. OJ and I have proved we can barely finish a sack race, let alone a marathon.

I won't be buying the drinks then.

Yes, it's done by Banksy, he of the assorted artistic graffiti around London. And yes, the moment Westminster Council noticed it they had it towed away. But at least one group of people were impressed - British Telecom:

This is a stunning visual comment on BT's transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider.

Give the press officer a medal for that one. Of course, if all of us now go out to hack up telephone boxes with red paint and assorted forms of weaponry, it will be interesting to see if BT hold their line (arf arf) on this one and compliment us on our artwork. There's no reason why Banksy should be singled out for special treatment. Get out there and start vandalising, for the sake of BT's transformation into a modern communications services provider!

Photo and indeed story stolen from Londonist, who in turn stole the photo off Banksy's website. Sharing is good.

Twenty-five years on, life is imitating the art of one of our finest political satires.

Read this extract from the plot synopsis of a 1981 episode of Yes, Minister, entitled 'The Compassionate Society':

[The minister, Jim Hacker] learns from his chauffeur that there is a new St. Edward's hospital in Northern London that is staffed with 500 administrators and ancillary workers, but has no doctors, nurses or patients. Jim Hacker is aghast and decides to ask Bernard to look into this ... Bernard reports to the Minister that there are indeed no patients in St. Edward's hospital.

[source: The Yes (Prime) Minister Files]

Now read this morning's BBC News Online report:

A Somerset hospital trust is so short of cash it may never be able to pay the staff needed to open one of its new multi-million pound wards.

Weston General Hospital's £6m, two ward mental health unit, built under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI), was due to open to patients in June. But finance chiefs admit they failed to budget for the £560,000-a-year cost of staffing one of the wards.

The 10-bed section looks set to remain closed indefinitely.

[source: BBC News - 'No workers for new hospital ward']

Here I am, sometimes vaguely concerned about what may happen when out getting vox pops in south London, and all the while the BBC's Tehran correspondent - Frances Harrison, pictured above - has slightly greater concerns:

The BBC office is in a small residential apartment block in north Tehran, underneath the flat I live in. There's no sign and it's all very low-key. We don't give out the address to anyone we don't know

Quite a lot of the time we are simply not invited to press conferences - some are only for local media or even state media. Often they decide to exclude us or forget to include us - we never know which it is ... Our telephones may well be bugged - something that producers in London should remember when talking to us. We cannot do anything without the intelligence agencies knowing what it is - nor can journalists on tourist visas either. And many of the people we want to interview are scared.

When we are out in the field, one of the perils is to dodge the state-run TV camera crews who hunt us down - tape rolling - to ask us what we think of the anniversary of the revolution or whatever event is upcoming. When we say we are not allowed to give interviews without permission from London, they prepare a montage of the foreign media refusing to talk to them and add a voice-over saying how pathetic we are.

[source: BBC NewsWatch - 'Being "the enemy within"']

Apologies for Dayorama being unavailable earlier on this morning. It turns out the scripts that run our comments and trackbacks are being spammed to such an extent that our hosts had to take the site down. We were in danger of causing trouble for the entire server on which this and other websites are stored. This is not good. Hosts 34SP, despite an initial blip where they falsely accused us of not paying them on time, responded remarkably quickly and have made a few suggestions to help evade the spam. In the mean time comments won't work though, so I'm afraid if you feel passionately about fluffy sheep or Sir OJ, you'll have to email us!

I spent last night at the Regal Theatre in Minehead, watching a concert in aid of Amnesty International put on by people from the local school. It's a pleasure to be at what amounted to a school concert without the knowledge that I'd have to play grade 2 "Intercity Stomp" on piano or do some drumming for a musical about a cockerel, both events seared into my memory. School concerts are immensely more satisfying when safely removed from any risk of participation.

Alas, one of the first acts of the night knew all too well the unhinged terror of performing in a school concert without the necessary confidence to pull it off. She was only 10 or 11 and had elected, or been chosen, to perform a song with a full rock backing band. So from the off, she looked a little out of place tucked delicately behind the microphone in the company of four or five grown men on electric guitars, grand piano and drums.

And then she started to sing "Take Your Mama Out", Scissor Sisters' anthem for gay men coming out to their mothers in gay bars in New York. Lyrics include:

It's a struggle Livin' like a good boy oughta In the summer Watchin' all the girls pass by When your mama Heard the way that you'd been talking I tried to tell you That all she'd wanna do is cry

It's a great song, but I do wonder whether the poor young lady trying to sing it fully appreciated the context. (This is a band who also have a track dedicated to the phenomenon of the drug crystal meth on the US gay scene.) Either way, she was struggling to get the words out - by the second verse she was barely audible and referring to the lyrics on a sheet, which seemed not to help. BUT: full marks for effort. At the age of 11 I'd have been thinking twice about singing that song, on that stage, with that backing band, but she did it.

She was followed by an older girl, moving up to sixth form age, who had an amazing voice and proceeded to sing Lennon's "Imagine" with an endearing couldn't-care-less presence on stage. It's one of those voices which isn't the standard-issue private-school cut-glass operatic quality, more singer-songwriter, bit of gravel thrown in for character. It was great. The accompanying pianist screwed up once or twice, made all the more evident by the thinly veiled contempt on the face of our singer. She then returned to perform two songs on guitar, accompanied by a third girl. This was a mistake since the other girl wasn't all that hot in the singing department, and once again the look of thinly veiled contempt returned.

Other highlights of the first act (the event ran from 7:30pm til 11pm, quite a long haul but surprisingly entertaining) included a perfect violin rendition from someone no older than 12 or 13, and a performance of the Moonlight Sonata by a sixth form girl who looked for all the world as though she were going to commit suicide midway through it.

The second half was also pretty good, though fewer things immediately stood out. A comedy trio doing their level best to be Minehead's answer to Monty Python made appearances throughout the night, hitting new heights of strangeness, particularly with one sketch involving throwing cheese graters at someone. During this sketch, one of the trio told another to "sit in the corner and play Connect Four with the deer". And they duly did, sat opposite a ginormous cuddly toy deer who proceeded to narrowly lose. "He'll get you on the diagonals, sir! Always with the diagonals!"

The evening finished with a time-honoured rendition of "Hey Jude", performed by around 30 people on stage, led by a young man in a gold patterned jacket who looked like the next Bob Geldof in the making (that's part compliment, part insult). It made a Babyshambles gig look like a shining example of military efficiency. But it was good fun, and that's all that counts.

As Amy notes below, Sir OJ is running in the National this weekend. After a friend pointed it out, we agreed that I couldn't not bet on him. I'm not one for gambling, really. I've made a few punts in the past on relatively stakes - mostly at the times I've been to see City play, where the bets are of a pound or two (although as Ollie will testify, sometimes the winnings are high). Not being confident enough to make my way to the nearest William Hill, I instead registered for a Betfair account. I've backed a fiver on Sir OJ to win at 55-1, and a tenner to be placed at 9-1. So that's probably £15 down the drain. I opened my account, however, with £20 and, wanting a more immediate result, placed £5 on the draw tonight between Aresenal and Juve. The result - £12.70 profit. I would like to say it bodes well for the weekend, but at 55-1... well, at least I've nearly made my money back.

Fluffy sheep? Well, it's sunny and springlike here this evening in London. It made me think of fluffy sheep. Go figure. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Ol is in Somerset. On this note, let's hope the runner in the Grand National this weekend, going by the name of "Sir OJ", does well... If our very own OJ's bet on the horse winning comes in, Ollie and I will be eligible for a free dinner!

It's quite interesting about Dixons going "digital" as it were - as noted here by BBC R.I.P. There was also a hefty report on the BBC lunchtime news. They've had issues for a while, but feel that their Internet line will be more profitable. Existing shops will be renamed, "Currys.digital" (sounds rather naff in my opinion). I tried to use the online dixons.co.uk a few months ago and decided it was useless. Several of the products (yes, the ones with the special offers on them) were out of stock, the delivery charges were high and the site didn't really offer any useful information about the product I wanted to buy. In the end I gave up and used Amazon.co.uk. This doesn't bode well for their future.

Linked to Ollie's amusing post below, I admit that the below phrase in the said R.I.P article stood out a mile for me earlier.

"...DIXONS, as familiar a sight to shoppers as the TV sets in the corners of their living rooms, has had its plug pulled. Its circuits fried, its batteries failed, its tube blown..."

Is it really appropriate to use the expression "tube blown" considering the events of 7/7. OK, OK, grumble away: I'm going over the top, it's a phrase taken totally out of context etc etc. But nevertheless when I read that simple phrase, all I could think of was the tube attacks. Interesting.

What else can I muse over. Have we mentioned the Boat Race yet? Yes, I believe Ollie did - naturally in a derogatory fashion. I disagree with him that rowing is "...one of the most tedious sports going, made all the more distasteful by the calibre of some of the individuals involved with it". Football on the other hand... Anyway, I'm aware of the thin ground I tread upon if I start to criticise that tedious excuse for a kick around in the park. I'd say the only good thing to come out of football this season is the tv program Footballer's Wives... on that note, I'll shut up. (sorry, Chris) So, back to those Lycra clad men. I thought that Sunday afternoon was jolly good fun, enhanced by the fact that Oxford actually won. I was also inside for most of afternoon, overlooking the start at Putney, so avoided getting soaked. The Boat Race has rather the same effect on the weather Gods as Wimbledon - it always rains. I would say though that the press coverage of the result was as poor as the advertisement of the event in the first place (as mentioned by Ollie). On Monday, the Telegraph had a tiny column inch dedicated to the win on the front page, and it wasn't until the middle of the sports pages that the Boat Race was fully mentioned. Shocking.

Also, I've been meaning to mention a report in the Guardian on Saturday, written by Alexander Chancellor. I adore this weekly column and it's often the first part of the paper that I read. The fact that the column is always on the first page of the colour magazine, may or may not have something to do with this... Anyway, Chancellor's article last week was titled "The Advert That Beggars Belief". Apparently Westminster Council have launched a campaign with the purpose of persuading us not to give money to beggars. The slogan "Killing With Kindness" suggests that by giving money to beggars, we actually cause their deaths - they spend the money on drinks, drugs etc. Instead, we should give the money to charities that help these people. I can understand this - the theory has parallels with charity aid in developing countries. You can't give someone who is starving in the desert a gold coin - you need to give them food and shelter. Consequently, don't give a London beggar money to buy drugs, give it to a soup kitchen to provide them with nourishment. But, I agree with Chancellor. This is a "disgraceful advertising campaign". Firstly, the money spent on the wretched advertising campaign could probably keep a soup kitchen or something in operation for several months. And secondly, it does stop that natural impulse to help someone. Why should we be denied that desire to help someone? OK, sometimes giving money to a homeless person in a doorway can be stimulated by guilt - how can you walk out of the Royal Opera House one Friday and not feel slightly guilty if you don't help someone out? But why should I be denied this act of charity? And why should the beggar be denied my smile, act of kindness and brief chat? Perhaps it is naive of me, but I shall continue to buy the odd cup of soup or spare a little bit of change. And if I am convinced that I should stop this small act, then it certainly won't stop me smiling. In addition, that bit of money that monthly leaves my account and travels towards the the Samaritans will still continue, regardless of how many beggars I try to kill with my act of kindness.

In LPC news, I got a distinction (!!) in my property exam. My future employers have advised me to go out more and more. But as one friend put it oh so kindly in a text, "How could Miss I'm-Never-In-My-Own-Bed-Or-In-Before-3am, actually go out more?" Hmm. I've also achieved "competency" in my writing exam. I haven't seen the report yet, but as my father said, "there must be a fault in the course if you can pass a writing exam". It's true, oh so true. On that note, adieu.

Some of you may know that I like a good pun. I know that some of you do, too. And it is with great delight that I reproduce in full the following article by Will Pavia, which appeared in today's Times2. I reproduce it in full on the grounds that I can't immediately find it online, it's extremely funny, and it's a reason to go out and buy the newspaper, both today and in future. News International, don't come after me, stick to harassing George.

I admit that I like extremely laboured puns, says Will Pavia. The sort that leave you red-faced after an agonising delivery. We British were once extremely good at them. It is how we acquired the empire on which the pun never set. Then we started going in for political satire and fart jokes. And there was a wind of change.

Kenneth Williams is dead now. "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!" he shouted. Those were the days. If I ever go into comedy, bad puns will be my stock in trade. By day I will sell hosiery and that will be my stocking trade. And I will run a mail order company selling firewood for household pets (get the catalogue).

With the profits I shall set up a charity that builds affordable underwater housing for large sea mammals. I'm going to call it Habitat for Huge Manatees.

I admit that I don't like the car driver consensus that cyclists ought to obey traffic laws. Even before I began biking to work, I loved to watch cyclists coasting through roaring junctions, as oblivious to the Highway Code as Hindu cows. [Ollie: see, this is like listening to Clement Freud on Just A Minute]. Now I see the rationale: it's because they don't want to die.

Many started cycling for that same reason, afraid of terrorism on the tube. They know that jihadi strikes on cyclists are harder to pull off. The cyclist is far more likely to notice the bearded fellow in the padded jacket climbing aboard.

It is this same high regard for self-preservation that causes cyclists to ignore traffic lights. They would rather not negotiate a crossroads in a murderous column of vehicles. They would rather have a head-start. Occasionally, though, they can't be bothered to wait.

Of course, I never do it. I'm only the non-elected publicity front-man for the support of cyclists. I'm a wheel spokesman.

[source: 'I admit that I like...', Times2 p7, The Times, Wednesday, April 5, 2006]

George Galloway's been served with an injunction banning him from posting photographs to the internet revealing the identity of investigative journalist and 'fake sheikh' Mazher Mahmood.

Can't believe I missed George himself talking about his efforts to uncover Mahmood, at length, on The Guardian's Comment Is Free multiple-author weblog. Click here to read it - it's long but worth your time if you're interested.

Now the Respect Party website carries a notice as follows:

Rupert Murdoch’s News International tonight obtained a 24-hour injunction against George Galloway MP, Ron McKay and those acting on their behalf against the publication of photographs of News of the World employee Mazher Mahmood, the “fake sheikh”.

The picture had already been circulated to Members of Parliament and the House of Lords, to the Queen’s private secretary and to others in public life who may be in targeted by Mahmood’s unscrupulous, agent provocateur methods. Ironically, the solicitors acting for News International, Farrer & Co, also act for the Queen.

The restraining order expires at 4pm tomorrow and George Galloway plans vigorously to contest the ban. “This is exactly what we expected. And now we see just how hypocritical and slight News International’s professed commitment to press freedom is,” said George Galloway.

I can't help but feel any injunction is pointless by now. My understanding is George got the photos on there earlier today, in which case even if they've been taken down now, they'll have long since appeared all over the internet thanks to blogs like this one, news sites, gossip forums, etc. News International are already fighting a losing battle. And after all, Mr Galloway has as much right to investigate Mr Mahmood as Mr Mahmood does to investigate Mr Galloway...

Indeed as I finish this post, I've found the photos are still online at georgegalloway.com, injunction or no injunction. Right click, 'Save As'. Like about ten million other people. Murdoch and co might as well call it a day for the sheikh's anonymity, I'm afraid.

SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, has been set up with a view to becoming "Britain's FBI". In the words of Tony Blair:

"There is absolutely nothing, in my view, that should come before the basic liberties of people in this country to be freed from the tyranny of [serious] organised crime. [It's time to] stop trying to fight 21st Century crime by early 20th Century methods."

Nope, instead we'll fight them using Third Earth methods - that being the planet the ThunderCats came from. Take a look at the two logos above. On the left we have the well-known ThunderCats emblem; on the right, the new SOCA logo. Guardian Unlimited's News blog brought this to our attention and even asked a few questions to give the new SOCA press officers a workout:

[They] confirmed to us that the animal is a panther - in heraldry terms, a leopard argent, salient and reguardant - and they did admit that we "wouldn't be the first" to note the resemblance to the Eye of Thundera. We leave it to the reader to decide whether this is a coded admission that the ThunderCats symbolism has been secretly approved by the highest levels of government.

[source: Guardian Unlimited News Blog - 'Slouching towards Basildon']

The Lord of the Thundercats was of course Lion-O. The man ultimately at the head of SOCA and the rest of the country is Tony Blair. Presenting the face of British crimefighting, Lion-O Blair: he projects a red beam of light across the sky to summon an organised crime team, then demands the mafia give us a clue.

That'll be Michael Bolton. I've just bought a copy of "How Can We Be Lovers If We Can't Be Friends", a fine late 80's power rock ballad. This is why iTunes can be so evil. It allows for the purchasing of songs that one wouldn't otherwise bother with, but at 79p are too tempting. That's why I now also have a middle aged band from Holland doing a cover of "Shout".

You may be able to tell from the lack of posting that very little is happening. Oxford is pretty much dead. Finalists are revising, I'm working, and generally, meh. Though I'm now onto the second season of Deadwood, and just watched an episode where Lovejoy was battling with gleets. Really, really unpleasant. And yet compulsive viewing.

(And, yes, for what it's worth, I'm rather embarrassed at having a Michael Bolton track on iTunes. Especially since with my window open, I'm effectively broadcasting the fact to the Bear Lane courtyard. But how can we make love if we can't make amends? That's a pretty fundamental question.)

Princes Charles, William and Harry are all going in front of television royalty Ant and Dec as part of celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the Prince's Trust.

This is apparently their first joint television interview and is among a number of events to be screened by ITV for the anniversary during a three-hour special. I hope the other events are in keeping with the channel's choice of interviewer:

Ant: Welcome back to "You're a crusty old waxwork, get me out of here"! It's now early afternoon out here in, uh, Middlesex, which means it's early afternoon where you are.
Dec: Before the break we saw Charlie and Harry with their hands in unicorn poo, squishing and squelching around for more of those precious stars!
Ant: Now Charlie, you only managed to get two stars. What went wrong out there?
HRH Prince Charles: Hahaha yes, well, one isn't used to getting one's hands quite so dirty in quite such a fashion. Plus one's son seemed surprisingly inexperienced at being up to his neck in shit considering the tabloid reports.
Dec: Okay, but that leaves you with just two meals. Who's going to miss out?
HRH Prince Charles: Well I think both Harry and I have to take responsibility for that, but bless Wills, he never makes a fuss about anything, so we'll keep the meals and he can make do. He's got a girlfriend to look good for, after all.
Ant: But you're in love with someone too, aren't you Charlie?
HRH Prince Charles: Haha, erm, yes... whatever that may mean. You know I still haven't found that out, I must look it up.
Dec: Moving on, Harry, you've got to be looking forward to the next challenge - an AS level art exam...
Prince Harry: Oh definitely. I've not really got any experience of doing one, but I've been shown how it's done and there's a few recordings somewhere I can use to mug up on it.
Ant: And before we go, if we cut back to the scene back at camp, there's Will and it looks like he and that Kate girl are getting pretty intimate. Proud dad, Charlie?
HRH Prince Charles: It's a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved son.

It's the boat race today, and you wouldn't know it from the BBC Sport pages, which give the event all of one tiny link in the bottom right hand corner of their sports index with around two hours until it starts.

This is of course fine by me. As far as I'm concerned rowing is one of the most tedious sports going, made all the more distasteful by the calibre of some of the individuals involved with it. It tends to breed Ellen MacArthur Syndrome - electing to do something that involves irregular hours and hard work, then using this as a badge of honour and superiority over mere mortals, as though it's some heroic task foisted on our protagonist by divine intervention.

On the contrary, getting up early and doing lots of exercise in the name of propelling a boat a few hundred yards down a river as fast as you can is not the summit of humanity. Get on with it quietly and let us know how you get on at the end. It is not licence to get unbelievably drunk once or twice each year in your individual Oxbridge colleges, then puke everywhere and wake us mere mortals up.

But I imagine the BBC might do themselves a slight disservice by pretending the thing doesn't really exist (ITV, who now have the rights, have of course got it emblazoned as the main story on the itv.com front page). I might not give a monkeys who wins, but I've had at least five people invite me down to the riverside for the afternoon to watch it with them, and I'm known for not liking rowing much.

There is a guaranteed audience out there for this (far more a BBC audience than an ITV one, I would've thought - I can't help but feel ITV only want this as a symbolic victory over the BBC and not as a genuine ratings-grabber). So it seems ill-becoming of the BBC to ignore it in its entirety. Yes, the BBC has a remit to provide an alternative to the services offered by commercial broadcasters, but that doesn't mean completely ignore a sport those commercial broadcasters have nicked off the Beeb. Not everyone will defect to ITV if the BBC just happens to mention there's a boat race on.

Meanwhile I'll be listening to Man City v Middlesbrough instead, which I seriously reckon more people in this country care about than pay any attention to the boat race. There's probably more people already in the City of Manchester Stadium than exist at either of the two universities competing...

Apparently, I now have all the credentials of a rolling pin. And I don't just mean that I carry a little bit of excess weight. Last night, about 11pm I was at Holborn tube station, about to get on the Central line. We'd just left Tamarind (an amazing Indian, with a lovely atmosphere - highly recommend) and were heading back to my flat. For some unknown reason - and no, I wasn't drunk - I slipped on the metal/concrete stairs, fell on my backside, lurched forward and then proceeded to roll down the remaining stairs (about fifteen of them) in spectacular fashion. I certainly gained some momentum as I rolled along, much to the gasps and horror of everyone else on the stairs. I think there was general worry that I was going to land at the bottom with a cracked head and probably be unconscious. Seriously, I was travelling at some speed, and fifteen is a lot of stairs. However, all was fine. Bearing in mind I was wearing a skirt, I managed to not even ladder my tights! I now have several bruises on my legs and a relatively painful right buttock... but apart from that, all is well. Oh, and my pride is slightly dented as I feel this episode will be brought up for years to come! It's a good job I carry that bit of weight, otherwise a few bones would have been snapped I think! Thankfully, I have received generous amounts of sympathy, not least from Ollie:

"...and there I was thinking of an April fool to put on the website, when you're it..."

What can I say to that!