Getting back to normal

I'm not going to talk about my father any more, other than to say thank you to those people who left notes here, sent emails, text messages etc. The funeral will take place on Friday. I'm not looking forward to it, but by the weekend I hope I can put everything behind me and get on with the business of being a Father and a husband.

There is a story in the news today about Jeremy Clarkeson. I quite like the guy, but he does annoy me from time to time. Recently he annoyed me by claiming that the row over the government loosing CDs containing names, addresses, and bank account details for 25 million people, was trivial. Clarkeson was so sure that loosing this data was trivial that he published his own bank account number and sort code in the Sun newspaper, which has a circulation of over 3 million. Since doing this it seems that someone has managed to set up a fraudulent direct debit on JC's account. The fraudster is not without style. It seems the only beneficiary is a diabetes charity.

To Clarkeson's credit, he's publicly admitted that he was completely wrong. But we can learn a lot from this saga, most significantly that the man in the street is generally not aware of the importance of data security. It's worth noting also that the Sun column did not carry all the data that would be available to people with access to the CDs that went missing. It did not for instance include his address, though that would probably not be particularly difficult to obtain.

Brittany Spears seems to be in trouble yet again. I can't get worked up about Brittany as a performer, but I can't help but feel sorry for the girl now. There is clearly something wrong with her. Speaking as a parent myself, I'd be moving heaven and earth to prove I was a responsible father if I was threatened with the prospect of loosing custody of my son. Brittany appears to be lurching from disaster to disaster. There can only be two reasons for this; either she cares nothing for her children, or she is in desperate need of help. My money is on the second option.

I have come to the conclusion that people who should have grown up and haven't, are nearly always looking for something. I can't put Brittany in this category really, since she is only 25 or something. But take Kate Moss, she's my age and she's still falling down drunk at parties. I'm not suggesting that she's not having a good time, I just can't understand why she hasn't grown out of it. If the novelty hasn't worn off, if she hasn't found more worthwhile ways to spend her time, something must be missing from her life.