Yesterday I was in London for the day and, as always, I really enjoyed myself. There were one or two things I wanted to see for the first time before I leave these shores.

One was the famous little statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. I just love the fact that they erected a statue to a fictional character and such a magical fairy-tale one at that. As we approached the little leafy area where Peter Pan plays his flute, we saw an old man feed the birds in the park from his hand. He held some birdseed in his outstretched hand and tiny colourful birds came and rested on his fingers, nipping at the treats. A few steps closer to the statuette and a cheeky squirrel crossed our path.

read more

Personally, I think that having the next US president be a Democratic one might not be such a bad idea but I can't really build up any enhousiasm for the showbusiness-like feel of American politics. There seems to be a high level of hysterics involved.

read more

I just got back from a week's visit to Holland to say goodbye to family and friends in my preparation for moving to Australia. From the tiniest of tiny countries I will have moved, by way of England, to one of the largest countries.

read more

By now the press are all over the story of how that darling little girl who sang a song at the opening ceremony of the Olympic games mimed the whole thing.

And not only did she mime the song; it was some other little girl's voice. The thing was that the girl who sang the song was deemed too plain with her uneven teeth and 'chubby face'. I saw pictures of the two girls next to one another and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the girl who sang.

read more

Where are the hundreds of thousands of demonstators protesting against the agression of mighty Russia versus the tiny nation of Georgia? The Russian bear crushes a nation of no more than four million inhabitants and the professional protestors in the West take a day off.

read more

Yesterday, Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed away at the age of 89 in Moscow. Solzhenitsyn wrote his masterpiece The Gulag Archipelago[b], exposing the cruelty and oppression engrained in the Soviet Union system of communism.

read more

Once again Mr Blair (the blogger that is) comes up with a funny and bizarre item. He does manage to find these weird gems all the time. This time, he spots a story about some moustache vendettas going on between rival Palestinian factions.

read more

Are those lovable Aussie bloggers I used to hang out with on BF and later also on BP still anywhere around? I am talking about the likes of AussieSire/BlogSire and of course lovely Tottie.

In the run-up to my move to Sydney I would have liked to bend their ears about what it's like to live in Oz and what the Australian blogosphere is like compared with other places.

read more

For once it's the weekend and it's absolutely gorgeous out there. Yesterday was a veritable scorcher and today is looking as though it's going to be even hotter. I was wondering what had happened to all this global warmening that Saint Al Gore kept promising would arrive.

read more

There is a funny post on Tim Blair’s blog about the extraordinary worshipping of Barack Obama in Berlin yesterday. It had me in stitches I have to admit.

read more

I'm counting down to making the move from dear old England to my native Australia. I have started a blog called Bound for Oz where I will be detailing some of the ins and outs and ups and downs of the preparations and the actual move itself. I suppose I'll have to call the blog something else once I'm there.

read more

G'day out there. I've been missing from this forum for a good few months due to a number of ponderous private circumstances, the details of which I shall spare you. Suffice to say that my marriage is over and I shall be moving to Australia, the country of my birth, in a few months' time.

read more

My darling wife and I spent the Christmas period with the family in a lovely rented house in the Scottish Borders. The house was Georgian and backed onto the River Tweed. A freshly caught salmon and a bottle of champers was waiting for us on arrival and we had a great auld time in Bonnie Scotland.

read more

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is due to fly off to China for a high-level state visit which is in part meant to galvanise trade links with this imminent economic giant. This could possibly result in tens of thousands of British jobs, which is good of course.

read more

Image from my photo blog taken during a brief stay in Hong Kong two years ago. I loved every minute I spent in that city as it was a fascinating taste of Asia. A very accessible gateway if you will and it instilled a strong desire to see more of China and Asia in due course.

read more