HIDING THINGS

My neighbour's gobby daughter was last sighted by me over a year ago when my neighbour told me she had got her own flat. I sometimes see my neighbour's gobby daughter's children, but I don't see the gobby daughter herself. It has never occurred to me to think that my neighbour, a single mother herself, has built a cellar in her back garden and shoved her daughter into it. Only a lunatic thinks such far-fetched things about ordinary occurrences.

However, I'd like to think that if I happened to live with a man who spent hours in the garden shed, and who forbade everyone from ever going near it, that I would wonder why he did that.

I think I'd probably notice tons of earth being removed from the garden too should he happen to dig out a cellar under the swimming pool. I'd probably notice he was dirty, sweaty and tired after such work too and be a little curious as to what he was building and why.

Also, if he started spending his money on bathroom suites, cookers, fridges and things like tiles, electrical cables and steel doors that weren't for our own house, such things would occasionally come to my attention. If he regularly bought enough food to feed a larger family than we had, along with various clothing items, including nappies, I'm pretty sure that once or twice over 24 years I'd notice such things. I'd spot high electricity bills and wonder at them.

I'd always be a little suspicious too about why my husband enjoyed men only holidays to Thailand. And whilst he was away, I would be curious enough to search the fucking shed ten, fifty, a thousand times to find out what he did there.

If my husband was violent, domineering, cruel, with a criminal record, I'd be very very worried about his prolonged and excessively odd behaviour. It would run my life. I would not be able to rest until I knew what secret that shed held. I would be tormented.

Unless, of course, I managed to build myself a wall of denial about his behaviour that was so thick not even a tank could have demolished it. Then I wouldn't give a shit.

THICK ISLAMIST BANGED UP

"A judge today sentenced an Islamist activist to four and a half years in prison for terrorism offences, describing him as "arrogant, contemptuous and utterly devoid of remorse"."

As Abu Izzadeen brought himself to the attention of the whole nation by standing and shouting at then Home Secretary, John Reid (ordering him to leave "a Muslim area") in front of a roomful of press, despite being involved in the criminal acts of fundraising for and inciting terrorism, can we also add that he is incredibly thick.

Idiocy: Our latest ally in the fight against Muslim extremists.

UNSETTLED (CRAP) WEATHER OUTLOOK

"Average temperatures have rarely been exceeded for any length of time in the past month and there is little hope of a change in the next four weeks for northern and western Britain."

"cool and unsettled"
"More rain and showers to unsettled April"
"Turning more unsettled"

It's getting desperate now. I'm getting desperate now. The rain I can handle, but the constant attacks of hail? The freeeeeezing cold?

It is Spring for goodness sake! Just when am I going to be allowed to put away these jumpers, and scarves, and gloves, and hats? If I have to wear boots for much longer, I will near as damn it turn into a man. I need girlie sandals, or cute heeled shoes, or flat pumps. I neeeeed them. Yet the boots can't come off because this country seems to be lined up before some sort of Arctic blast wind tunnel.

And what the hell does "unsettled" mean anyway? What sort of weather is "unsettled", exactly? My cats get unsettled when they smell the local tom cat has been around. My gran is unsettled in her new bungalow. I feel unsettled when the man sitting next to me on the bus has a huge erection. What's "unsettled" got to do with the weather?

Why don't they just say what they mean and and say it's "crap".

ECONOMICS: ME NO SPEAKA DE LANGUAGE

The newspapers keep trying to worry me by mentioning this credit crunch thing in every other sentence, and then tagging on scare stories of tumbling house prices as if we are all heading together down some sort of economic death slide towards the hard tarmac of complete financial obliteration.

Not that I don't care about the rest of you, but I've been trying to find out about whether I personally need to be worried by these current economic happenings.

I have no understanding of even the most basic tenants of economics (a surprise to you, no doubt) and so I've been saying to everyone I know that the credit crunch won't get me because I don't live on credit and that house prices aren't an issue because I'm neither selling nor buying a house, and then watching carefully for their reaction.

I'm always hopeful of a cheery smile with a few words of confirmation, but all I seem to be getting are sidewards glances and mumblings about it being "complicated".

This worries me.

And yet, when I watch the news the worst stories they can dredge up are people who haven't been able to get a 100% mortgage and people who lost their house because they did not exercise even the most basic financial management and attempted to live the life of a millionaire by maxing out every loan and every bit of credit they could lay their hands on.

Now, I'm sorry that some people currently can't get a mortgage, but with house prices no longer rising at the rate they were, and in some areas even falling, then waiting would seem a good idea anyway.

And if some people choose to live beyond their means on loans and overdrafts then I have no sympathy for them. Acting dumb sometimes means that bad things happen to you.

So, I can't help thinking that actually the real story here, apart from the subrime mortgage disgrace, is the fact that Big Business has cottoned onto the fact that a long period of healthy economics and good Governmental policy has lead to most people having a few bob in their pockets.

Now that there are economic scare stories flashing at us from every news source, they've decided to cash in and bump up the price of their vegetables, petrol and anything else floggable because they can now say, "sorry mate, it's this global economic downturn, we've just got to put up our prices to stay in business, sorry".

And because most people are as ignorant about economics as me, they are getting away with it.

Tell me I'm wrong.

LEST WE FORGET, INDEED

"At the end of the second world war, Germany lay under 14 billion cubic feet of rubble. Three million of its homes had been destroyed. The railway network had been obliterated. A million French citizens were in captivity. Over 50 million Europeans were dead. In 1939 a great massed phalanx of German tanks had fanned out across the continent, crushing and torching everything in its path, followed by the infantry and – it was said – "a stampede of riderless horses like the wreckage of the Apocalypse". Five years later – in 1944 – the Allies had responded, repulsing the heinous advance with four times as much armour, transforming vast swathes of Europe into tank-mangled sludge."

The older I get, the more shocking this war.

WHEN VITAMINS ATTACK!

"Vitamin supplements taken by millions of people do not increase life expectancy and may raise the risk of a premature death... In 47 trials with 180,938 people and a low risk of bias, the "antioxidant supplements significantly increased mortality"... vitamin A was linked to a 16% increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7% increased risk and vitamin E to a 4% increased risk."

Even carrots are trying to kill us now!

MOULD SPORE PANIC

I thought we had enough to worry about with the credit crunch, international terrorism and climate change.

Now we have mould spores to worry about too.

"Even just opening the lid of a bin containing organic waste can cause mould spores to be stirred up which, if breathed in, can damage the lungs"

Even just opening the lid of a bin.

This world gets more dangerous by the hour.

THE OLYMPIC TORCH GAME

What is this game that's going on whereby people are throwing themselves across hordes of bodyguards to put out the Olympic flame?

It's like some sort of international version of those games that get played in English villages, where once a year all the men come out and chase a lump of cheese around the streets or whatever it is they do.

I'm sure it's fun, but these people are distracting the world from a bigger story - China has a problem with Human Rights.

Thought that should get a mention.

PRINCESS DIANA: NOT KILLED BY PRINCE PHILIP

Apparently, in a real shock twist, it has been determined by an inquest that lasted six months and cost £10m, that Princess Diana and her lover Dodi were killed in a car accident.

"There is no evidence that the Duke of Edinburgh ordered Diana's execution and there is no evidence that the secret intelligence service or any other government agency organised it"

I respect Al Fayed's wishes to remain forever deluded there was a murder plot, but the rest of us are under no obligation to have to put up with him and his fantasies anymore.

SPRING IN ENGLAND

Snow/Sleet/Rain

EVERY MORNING WHEN I WAKE...

... I hope he's finally gone.

Perhaps tomorrow

APRIL FOOL: I WAS SO VERY FUNNY

I tried to trick my London colleague, via e-mail, into believing that the constituency Detective Inspector had been on the phone talking about the local rag running a piece on alien abductions and missing local people. Ask the boss, I wrote, if our constituency has a history of alien abductions.

Hee! Hee!

Then I got a phone message from said Detective Inspector wanting to talk to me about my e-mail.

Oh no! Perhaps it's an offence to draw police into April Fool jokes, I thought.

But it was OK. The Detective Inspector didn't know about the alien abduction e-mail. He wanted to talk to me about the one I'd sent him about a local murder.

Phew!