Quite pleased with my photo of the new Reading station above… I had to take several frames (as they say in the trade!) and jiggle with the controls to get the train a bit blurred while not whiting out the whole picture. As usual, Photomatix added the final lighting magic. For the first time I used the “surreal” setting, which seem to suit the setting well.

Anyway, Reading Railway station is still work in progress. It’s like an airport. But two friendly constants remain:

1. The Three Guineas
2. Those boards on platform 7b where you can look up your destination and see all the trains written up. It is my number one go-to place in the whole vast concrete and steel complex.

Taken at 04:43.

All this has spurred me to get off my bottom and to go on my first ever sponsored run!

I’m running for “Team Macmillan” in the Newbury Bayer 10K run on Sunday 26th May. This is a very local run in Newbury. It starts and finishes in the central and historic Market Place with loads of people standing around looking at the runners.

So, I’m not taking any chances. I am making sure that I’m doing lots of training – I have done four 10ks in the last few months.

I’d be very grateful if you could sponsor me – even a little amount helps greatly – by using my Justgiving page here. All the funds will go directly to Macmillan Cancer Support.

I realize that 10k is modest in the scheme of things, but, for me, it’s a big deal – especially because if I fail (which, fingers crossed, I won’t) my failure will be seen very clearly by the whole of Newbury!

You start getting laid back at work. You start actually talking to people, rather than coming in and sticking your head in spreadsheets.

You give up trying to look nice and get a real hard ass “American’s most wanted” profile pic.

You start enjoying the Eurovision Song Contest for the fascinating festival of kitsch that it is, content to leave your musical credibility at the door.

You start actually watching BBC Three.

And may I say well done BBC Three for some excellent Eurovision Song contestual programmes and for giving me the opportunity to explain to a teenager, who – of course – knows it all, that the UK doesn’t have to bother with peripheral fripperies (copyright the late lamented Scouser Ray Moore 1985) such as the Eurovision Song Contest Semi-final, simply because we bung a bung to the European Broadcasting Union?

No.

We are on the UN Security Council.

We lead the British Commonwealth of 2.2 billion people.

We run Montserrat, for pity’s sake!

We deserve to win the European Song Contest every four years.

Why don’t people love us more?

And “Why don’t people love me more?” – is the signature question of Tony Blair.

Answer: You invaded Iraq with that total fuckwit George W Bush, you numpty!

And as a result, after winning Eurovision around the time T Blair came into Downing Street, we have been consigned to the also-rans.

It’s all your fault Blair! That’s what I’d like to see you on trial for. To heck with war crimes!

Photo:Some rights reserved by kjelljoran

Arrival were from Liverpool. Their details are on Wikipedia here.

I have put two versions of the track below from YouTube.

The first is just the soundtrack with pictures of cats, which you might prefer to the second version, which includes Jimmy Savile at the beginning. You have been warned. Sorry about that, but the subsequent recording of the band playing the song on Top of the Pops on 29th January 1970 is a real gem.

Every year I drop exhausted from elcectioneering around May 10th. This year it was our by-election and I did, for example, 22,000 steps on Thursday, according to my pedometer.

And then, it’s straight into Christian Aid week. It’s a sort of “hair of the dog” thing. But I love it. It’s light relief to deliver 80 envelopes for charity, after delivering 2,000 hard sell political leaflets.

I do the same street every year for Christian Aid Week. I know the people quite well in some of the houses.

I always give the envelopes out on Friday and collect on Monday, if I can. That way you catch people in their best mood with their most money of the week!

Last night I gave out the envelopes with my trusty hound, Charlie.

A few seconds after I delivered an envelope to a flat, a man emerged. I wondered what he was going to say. He said:

Would you like some rice? We have some nice rice if you would like some.

At first I was confused and thought that he thought that because I was handing out envelopes asking for money for people who are hungry, it meant that I am hungry myself. No, that wasn’t what he thought.

It was immediately clear that he was offering me rice as a simple act of kindness to a stranger.

I said “I’m OK thanks” but thanked him profusely for his offer and bade him a good evening while (unusually for me) raising my hat to him in respect.

What a nice man! I will try to give him a thank you card and a nice photo of Newbury when I go back on Monday.

Dave Allen was a very funny man. Some of his gags were very simple – almost childish. But he had a deep anti-establishment, awkward squad streak and a great passion for pointing out stupidity in the world.

The programme shows some of his early career as a chat show host in Australia and the UK, as well as some very touching glimpses of his private world which suggest a very fulfilled, happy, family life.

Yet, yesterday in Newbury, Berkshire, the two candidates for that proud national Labour party were humiliated as they were beaten into sixth and eighth (last) place in a town council by-election by a wife and husband team who founded a little local party a few years ago in a pub.

How the mighty have fallen!

Keir Hardie! Michael Foot! Tony Benn! Tony Blair! Clement Atlee! Neil Kinnock! Ed Miliband! Your boy and girl took one hell of a beating!