Pre-Christmas Panic

I haven't written for days. Well, actually I have, but nothing that got finished. It's the pre-Christmas panic. Every free second is spent shopping, licking stamps, wrapping things, looking for a parking space, etc. I don't hate Christmas, just a few things about Christmas.

We went to Devon for the weekend. It peed down with rain on Friday night. There was some discussion about whether we should attempt the journey. In fact there was very little trouble on the roads The trains all died of course. So I guess I was lucky I didn't have to come to work that day.

Nothing very exciting happened at the weekend. The Boy managed to pee on his Grandma's computer chair. So he's now peed on the rocking chair, the computer chair, and the bed there. I don't understand it. He doesn't have accidents anywhere else. Mummy was boiling with rage.

On the plus side, we went to Barnestaple and we have just about got all the Christmas shopping done. There are a few little things to do, and lots of wrapping and sending, but I think all major presents are taken care of. Being Father Christmas is an expensive business I've discovered. Filling a stocking is more than a few pennies and requires imagination. I am however having quite a lot of fun with that.

Since Woolworth's announced that it is closing down and selling off stock, the in-store scrums have worsened. I don't think I would go in without a crash helmet and cricket box now. I can't believe any of teh bargains can be that good.

The BBC reports that Google has released its annual Zeitgeist listing. Apparently this is simply a list of the year's most popular and fastest rising search terms. If you look on the Google site itself, you can even get a country by country breakdown. I don't actually give a toss what people are searching for to be honest, but one thing that strikes me as odd is that every top-ten list of popular search terms published by Google seems to include only fairly wholesome and morally justifiable searches. Not one mention of the word "sex", "nude", or even "paparazzi" seems to appear in any of those lists, not once. Do we believe the world is this wholesome, or do we believe that Google might just be tweaking their data?

Did you notice that Gordon Brown managed to make an arse of himself at PMQs Thursday? Whilst answering questions on the economy he was attempting to explain how he had "saved the banks". Such was his passion however, that he tripped over his own words and claimed to have, "saved the world" instead. There were peels of laughter, the like of which I never remember before in the House of Commons. Gordon however remained sombre. Not the tiniest hint of a smile came to his stony face as he waited for what to him must have seemed like an eternity, for the laughter to subside. For the briefest of moments, as the leader of the opposition took his opportunity to make fun of the PM, he did allow the corners of his mouth to turn up just a little. But it was gone almost as soon as it appeared. Do we want a PM that can't laugh at himself?

Ireland is to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. In case you've been on Mars, the Lisbon Treaty was drawn up to pave the way for a Euro President amongst other things. It was born from the rubble of a previous treaty that was rejected by the French and the Dutch. And it is almost exactly the same document. It looked as though it was bound to be ratified, and then the Irish loused it all up by voting No in a referendum. They were the only European state to hold a referendum. It was a great day for people power if you ask me. However, it is to be submitted again to the Irish people, who are being bribed with concessions, whatever that means.

The question we should be asking ourselves is, why when countries vote Yes in an EU referendum, do they never get a chance to vote again, whereas they do when they vote No? Well one answer is, that no one actually has voted Yes in an EU referendum in the last 30 years. Which should probably tell us something.

Surely there can't be a person in the world who hasn't now seen the video of George W ducking the flying shoes. I have to say I was mildly impressed with his reflexes. The footage would have been much funnier had the shoes bounced off his head, but still, it was worth seeing. And you have to hand it to the bowler, he didn't miss by much, and that was quite a distance. The reporter who threw the footwear is now in custody, but it seems there is a certain amount of support for the guy.