Long Time, No Readers.

I'm not in the habit of apologising to myself but I will just this once: it's been a long time since I posted anything so, sorry, Mr. Fingers. Nice to come back and see a complete absence of comments; rather like coming home after the summer holiday and finding you haven't been burgled. Still, as I've mentioned before, this blog is for me to record my thoughts and it would appear that I've not had one since last December.

In some ways that's true. Work has been ludicrously, sometimes pleasantly, invasive. Add a few external projects, another choir-training session and the usual demands that the Fingernails present you with and you find yourself happy just to curl up with a good book or a good wife in the evening. The witty and salient comments I dream up on the walk to work immediately get drowned like puppies in a sack as soon as I start working. By the time I leave I'm focussed on hugging the family, having some dinner and a couple of glasses of wine before putting the short people to bed and beating back the tide of often nonsensical e-mails with a sharp stick.

President Sarkozy has plummeted in peoples' estimation. The French like their Head of State to be a composed patrician, tending his EU-subsidised flock with avuncular care whilst reeking of bespoke outfitting and pre-Napoleonic financial reserves. Sarko's mirror shades, jeans, rapper jewellery and Euroslapper wife have not gone down too well in a time when prices for household basics have soared. Even our city has lurched to the left for the first time in Mrs. Fingers' lifetime. Don't bet on the Prez not turning it around, though; the man is a genius of reinvention.

The French have taken the smoking ban lying down. I'd never have thought it from this country, but that's just what's happened. Apart from the odd hunger-striking bar owner, practically no-one has offered any resistence. Seeing as healthy people will ultimately be more of a burden on the social services in later life than smokers it seems a little contradictory to encourage (or force) people to stop smoking if you really want to reduce state debt. Raise the retirement age and encourage people to light up a Marlboro; that way, everyone keels over whilst still contributing to the system. Problem solved.