Nothing particularly new to tell myself.

That concert last Friday evening was fun, if a little long. Having vowed not to do all the commentary and introductions for the abysmal fee they were paying I caved in when I saw the expectant faces in the audience. They'd come to enjoy themselves and a bit of chit-chat does make the evening go with a swing, so away I chatted. They want us back again next year, but they'll have to double my fee for all the work I do.

Another one tomorrow night, this time conducting my choir in a neighbourhood church. They've done a very good job learning a lot of music in a short time but the fact remains I don't have the forces available at Easter to match their ambition. We have nearly thirty at Christmas and just trot out three short numbers; around Easter we have just over half that and they want to sing oratorios. They sound good, but it could all be so much better if he had another ten in the ranks.

Let's not forget the day job; that's a taxing one at the moment...

Anybody watching what's going on in Gordon's Britain?

You can be ripped off, taken for a fool, abused and berated for some unspecified act and most of the time those with something better to do than channel-surf daytime TV will just shrug and get on with more pressing matters. However, there's one area of our lives where the above acts upon our person cannot and must not go unpunished: when they are perpetrated by the Government.

I don't mean Sarkozy and his not-so-merry-men; I mean Gormless Brown and his collection of fellow liars, cheats, traitors and wannabe-Marxists. I left England for the second time in 1997, just after His Tonyness got the keys to the trough. The country I find when I go back to visit is now a nightmare of vacuous nanny-like supervision, protection and invasion. The fifteen-year rule allows me to vote this time round and it's something I shall do with the utmost pleasure, despite the three main parties being practically indistinguishable from one another on certain key issues. Democracy in the UK currently appears to be a joke, Labour having socially engineered and gerrymandered their way into contention for a 'historic' fourth term. 'Historic' it certainly will be if this band of thieves and incompetents are returned to office, for it shall herald the day that democracy well and truly died in the United Kingdom.

Sorry about that, but it makes me livid when I see my mother still having to work at 78 and paying income tax out of her pension so that the likes of Anjem Choudary can sit on his fat arse and declare war on the country. I'd better not go on...

Thanks for the comment, Elaine; it was delightful to see that little '1' in the box. Doesn't happen often on my online diary. Hope my reply was useful. I had to stick it under 'Anonymous' as I hadn't signed in at that stage.

It's late, again, and the last day of school before the holidays beckons for the Fingernails. Fingernail 1 has now been learning the violin for six months and she's actually really rather good. She also loves standing up in front of people and performing, so she must get that from her dad, even though I'm wearying of the ritual of getting togged up: 3000 concerts later, you do get a bit jaded. Anyhow, she wants to play a couple of pieces in front of her classmates, tomorrow, rounding off the recital with a dip in the sweety bag she just so happens to be bringing along. Having let off a tirade at the headmaster the other day for the school's lacksadaisical (does that look right to you? I can't be bothered to check) approach to their class's education this year (four different supply teachers since September 2009), I'm now going to go in and stick a flower in the barrel of their gun. Politics is all around us, wherever we look, and all we do is try to steer our own course through the muck without getting too dirty.