As tonight is a special night I thought I'd do a special olde worlde type dish to help it along. While not pretending to cook as people did in pre-Christian times I have tried to avoid ingrediants that were not avaliable to people then like spuds or tomatoes.

As fortune has it those nice folks at Waitrose do a pack of chopped up pigeon, partridge, pheasant and wild mallard and I thought that would make the basis of a great stew.

To start fry off some chopped onions, garlic and leek in a pan until they go translucent. Chuck in the meat and seal it off, chuck in some chopped root veg like carrots and parsnips and add some spices. I am going to use ground black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, mace, rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley. Top up the pan with a dark ale or stout (I used Fullers London Pride this time) and leave it to simmer along for an hour or so.

Bung on the Bobby Boris Picket and a bit of Screaming Jay Hawkins, drink the rest of the ale and serve up with mashed turnip, more ale and mead.

To start try some smoked venison on toast with horseraddish

If you are middle class enough to live near a Waitrose they have some really good partially boned out oven ready pheasant right now, stuffed with herbs and sausage meat.

So this is a bit of a Nigellla post (minus the crude sexual inuendo and simulated oral sex).

We had the Captain round on Saturday night so I bought two of the wee birds. Pour some vegetable oil in a baking dish and stick it in the oven, then peel, cut into chunks and parboil some spuds so that their outside is a little crumbly, but not too soft. While the spuds are boiling, peel some parsnips and carrots and cut them into fingers. Finely chop a red onion.

Whip the baking dish out of the oven and line the bottom of it with the veg, sprinkling the red onion over the top. give it a good dose of seasoning with some salt, freshly milled black pepper and some mixed dried herbs (fresh rosemary would have been nice too, but I could not get any). Then add a couple of pinches of ground nutmeg and the same of ground cloves. Drizzle some oil over the top and just rest the birds on top of the veg so that the juices will merge with all that veggee goodness. Whack it in the oven and go and listen to a bit of Emmylou Harris for about 50 minutes.

When the Red Dirt Girl has finished whip the birds out of the oven and divide them over three plates, oh yeah don't forget to chuck a couple of Sainsburys ready made Yorkshires back in with the veg while you do that, then after about five minutes plate up the lot.

Serve with some greens and a whacking great big bottle of Soave, and coffee and Irish Whiskey

Did you know that before the Battle of the Somme the British and French artillery bombarded German positions for seven days.

How long is it to Guy Fawkes Night now?

We took Old Nick and the Powder Monkey to visit some local attractions today.

We started off with a walk around Connaught Water, a lake in Epping Forest named after Arthur Duke of Connaught (he was the eldest son of Queen Victoria, who never became King as he died before she did) who was the Lord High Ranger of Epping Forest.

Having come prepared with a bag of bread we were immediately besieged by birds including a pair of Mute Swans, one of whom (the female otherwise known as a pen, the male is a cob) got so angry with a Coot that it grabbed it by the neck in her beak and gave it a good shaking before casting it aside. I know swans can be aggressive but I have never seen that kind of behaviour before. So we gave them some more bread and scarpered with a squadron of Canada Geese in hot pursuit.

I had taken a pair of binoculars with me so we all had a good look at the waterfowl on the lake. Aside from the swans and geese we saw: Mallard, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Moorhens, Coots, Black Headed Gulls and a Great Crested Grebe as well as a very pretty little brown duck (seen here hiding behind a Coot) that we could not identify from my British Bird book.

We also saw some Magpies, Carion Crows, Feral Pigeons, Jays and Sparrows.

From there we went on to the Royal Forest, a Georgian coaching inn that is now a Brewers Fayre. As ever with these places if you stick to steak there isn't much they can do to mess it up and we had a good feed with drinks for about £50 the four of us.

However the jewell of our trip out was Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge next door. It was built by Henry VIII, but he never used it much as by the time it was finished he was 51 and so fat that he was four and a half feet round his waist making him England's fattest monarch.

The Lodge is the only standing example of a three storey Tudor hunting lodge and was known as the Great Standynge. Wealthy noblemen would use it as a hunting platform to shoot deer with crossbows and generally have a bit of a party with lots of food and ale served in tents outside. According to local legend Elizabeth I (of England my Scottish pals) once rode up the stairs on her white horse, she was a bit of a girl eh?

There are some informative displays about Tudor food, fashion, buildings and hunting on the different floors and its free to get in (Huzzah for free things!) Anyway the Powder Monkey had a great time dressing up in Tudor costume and seeing all the replica Tudor food on display and I got a Tudor Cookbook so watch out for some culinery experiments coming to a PC near you soon!

If you want to visit Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge you can find it in Rangers Road, Chingford London E4 (Tel020 8529 6681)

According to Oliver curry of the London School of Economics the human race will evolve by the year 3000 into 7 foot tall, athletically bodied men - with wait for it girls - bigger penises and glossy haired women with pert breasts and no body hair.

But all in the garden is not so rosy as we will then sub divide into a race of good looking and creative people (like editors and writers are today actually) and a race of ugly, squat, stupid trolls who will do all the shit jobs.

Well I thought that's interesting so HG Wells must have stopped off here in his time machine to get the idea for the Morlocks and Eloi. Must be quality reserch though it was commissioned by Bravo TV

According to today's Irish Times from 2009 travellers between the UK and Ireland will have to have a passport.

This is yet more evidence of the UK government's paranoid attitude to its borders. In Europe you can travel freely most of the time between the Schengen countries that are within the EU (soon to be extended to most of the new EU entrants) without being bothered by passports and customs checks. Its only the UK that insists on it.

A big step backward in my opinion. Its bad enough with all the palaver of security when you leave the UK without having to wait in line when you get back.

Staff at the theatrical costumier Morris Angel have discoverd the cloak worn by Christopher Lee in the classic 1958 Hammer Horror while doing a stocktake prior to Halloween. Aside from the Count's cloak which Angels think is worth £24,000, the long overcoat Peter Cushing wore as Van Helsing was found at the same time.

Call me a cynic but isn't it a coincidence that the restored print of the film is due to be released next week!

Christopher Lee had played the Frankenstein monster the year before in Hammer's first colour horror remake The Curse of Frankenstein , but apparently was the second choice for the role as the future Carry On star Bernard Bresslaw had wanted too much money for the role.

And in the New Year watch out for a new BBC production of Dracula with Marc Warren as the Count and David Suchet as Van Helsing, hope its not as crap as their version of The Hound of the Baskervilles was.

My favourite news story from the weekend was that JK Rowling has just outed Dumbledore as a gay on an American book tour.

Gay rights group Stonewall said: "It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster."

While the first part of the statement is true enough, get a grip lads, wizard headmasters are only pretend.

Still should do sales of her books no harm as even more people in the bible belt will now have even more reason to rush out to buy and burn them!

Not wishing to disappoint my new friend Bunnybunbunbun, here is part two of Shipcook's Leeds Castle report.

After we enjoyed looking at all the birds in the grounds we went and had lunch in the old stable block, just a roast beef sandwich and a pint, but it was very nicely presented with same salad and parsnip and beetroot crisps, came to about £10 per head.

We then had a walk through the Culpepper Gardens to enjoy all the herbs and flowers. The Culpeppers owned Leeds Castle in Stuart times. From there we visited the aviary where there are lots of toucans and parrots, some of whom have a rudimentary grip of English.

Then we went to the maze where we got lost, before descending into the grotto to see all the shell mosiacs including a pretty fearsome dragon.

Then after the Powder Monkey had had a quick romp in the playground we went to the dog collar museum, not as weird as it sounds as the castle has always had dogs for guarding, hunting and as pets. As well as some fearsome spiked hunting collars they had the one worn by Sweep on the Sooty Show!

On to the Castle and we saw the wine cellars and some of the living rooms done out in different period styles. Henry VIII lived at Leeds Castle with Catherine of Aragon before he got bored with her and created the Church of England just to get a divorce and there was a big four poster bed just like the one she would have slept in.

All in all a great day out and good value at £14 and you can use the same ticket for a whole year if you want to go back and see the spring flowers or the baby ducks and swans.

is in Kent, so is there a Maidstone Castle in Yorkshire?

Enough of theat rapier fine wit, what I enjoyed most about the day we spent there yesterday, aside from watching the Powder Monkey having such a great time was all the marvellous birdlife.

Now I know some of these critters are bred there but outside of the aviarys we saw

Mallards (Wicked Old Nick taunted them with "We know what you taste like" as we had eaten a game stew last week), Eider ducks, Shelduck, Pochard, Red Breasted Geese, Barnacle Geese, Canada Geese, Ne Ne (Haiwaian Geese), Emden Geese (very tasty they are too), Mute Swan, Whooper Swan, Black Necked Swan, Black Swan, Moorhens, Coots, Great Crested Grebes, a Heron, a Cormorant, Black Headed Gulls, Jackdaws, Carrion Crows, Magpies, Rooks, Feral Pigeons, House Sparrows (Havn't seen them in London for ages), Blackbird, Robin, and a female Chaffinch.

The interesting thing about Barnacle Geese is that in the days before the Reformation people used to believe that they hatched from barnacles so technically they were classed as fish. This meant that you could eat them on Fridays. Apparently the barnacle when extended from its shell looks like a goose neck. Personally I think this has to be taken with a pinch of salt as domestic geese were kept on farms and people can't have been that thick not to have noticed goslings hatching from goose eggs.

Its precisely the sort of conveniant clap trap that allows bishops to eat a nice tasty roast goose instead of a muddy carp. So it ain't just the Bible that can be used as an aid to interpretation by the Church, its quite happy to adopt local legend if there is a roast dinner in it!

The news about the BBC job cuts reminded me of when I used to be a Corporate PR manager. It was the day the company's annual figures were announced and I got sent to one of our sites to look after any news crews that turned up.

ITN turn up presenter and steadycam man, they were in did the piece and out 15 minutes max.

BBC Lunchtime News turn up Rory Caitlin-Jones (nice fellow by the way) camera man and sound guy, take a bit longer but eventually they are off. Ring office

"Can I come back now?"
"No BBC News are coming"
"No I've just done them"
"Nah thats just lunchtime there is another crew coming for the six and ten o clock news programmes"

Well bugger me if when they turn up there is the presenter, camera man, sound man, outside broadcast van and driver, plus a bunch of three hangers on. they are there all afternoon in which time a bloody producer also bowls along for the event.

No wonder people think the BBC is overstaffed if they can send two different crews and about eleven staff to do the job ITN can do with two and then take about seven hours to cover something as boring as a set of annual results.

Did you know that whales, porpoises and sturgeons are royal fish. I guess this means that only the royal family can eat them and since we stopped whaling ages ago I don't see a sperm whale steak of porpoise sausage appearing on the menu at Buck House very often.

I don't know about sturgeons, I think they are kind of rare too, but its not so bleak, Swans are royal birds and there is plenty of meat on them. Must be like eating a very, very big duck.

Of course when she was a a busy working mum a roast swan on Sunday would be just the thing, with four growing children, and mum in the granny flat, especially if her sister and family popped round too. However now that the family have left home and the others are busy eating ambrosia in heaven, (hopefully it tastes like gin) they must have enough left over to keep them going for ages, cold swan with salad, swan sandwiches, swan and mash, swan curry. I bet by the time they have finished it it must be Sunday again! I think she must slip a few swan sarnies into Gordon Brown's rucksack when he pops round for his weekly visit, even though he is a commoner.

I wonder with his Greek heritage whether Prince Philip has ever thought about making tasty swan gyros though. Umm I can see it now the swan breasts cut into thin steaks and threaded onto the spit, the whole elephant's leg of swan steaks basting in its own fat as it turns round and round in front of the grill, the handsome Prince in his royal piny slicing off strips of swan with the sword of state and handing them to the Queen to stuff in the pitta on top of the salad

"My husband and I is having Chile sauce with that"

I really like peanut butter isn't it great with stuff like Branston pickle, blue cheese or sweet and sour sauce? anyway its also a great way to cheat with a satay sauce.

This dish served three hungry pirates with a bit left over, so slip on Icky Thump, crack open a St Miguel from my friend, the superhero Reduced to Clear Man at Sainsburys and lets go cook.

First the sauce. A very big dollop of peanut butter, splat it in the bowl, add say a desert spoon of toasted sesame oil, same of rice wine vinegar and soy sauce, a chopped chile pepper and a good squeeze of fresh lime juice (from a lime not a bottle you lazy slattern Nigella) and give it a good mix up.

In the pan goes some oil, a chopped onion, a couple of chopped cloves of garlic, about an inch of chopped ginger and some chopped chile peppers (as many as you fancy), good spoonful of Chinese five spice powder, bung in two chopped chicken breasts let it cook till the chicken is sealed, chuck in some sliced mushrooms and some soy sauce to bring out the liquid then bung in some sugar snap peas or some small brocoli florets or fine green beans. Let it all fry for a bit while you cook some egg noodles in another pan.

The noodles should take about five minutes, drain them and fold them into the chicken and veg then chuck the peanut sauce in and work it into the dish until everything is well coated.

Serve it up with some Chinese Plum wine, smashing

according to this weeks Marketing, Edinburgh Castle has reworked its identity. Pardon me for being pedantic, but its a fucking castle, that's its identity, not the drawing of a lion sitting on a rock that's a piece of branding.

Also in Marketing a new identity has been created for Shakespeare Country otherwise known as South Warwickshire. Surely that's the other way round.

Its no wonder people have problems with their own language is it

That's why I have rebranded my present place of residence as:

Dick Turpin Widow Shelley roast county!

Ran the headline in the Evening Standard last night, imagine my disappointment when I discovered it wasn't a radioactive and rabid Pepe le Pew suffering from incontinence

The Cook likes Sherlock Holmes stories but "Oh dear" I thought when I unwrapped the parcel from Amazon, its a Sherlock Holmes story by an American Christian fundy.

I wasn't dissappointed in my feelings of trepidation!

In the narrative Holmes attempts to save a member of the diplomatice service who is home in London, from his post in the middle east, (where he also distributes bibles to the poor heathens) from a bunch of Arab Islamic extremists (Apparently its OK not to like them). When the rescue goes wrong he is bound and dumped in the Thames.

Unable to shake free from the ropes that bind him he is suddenly cast free and gets to the shore to be greeted by the Holy Roller's daughter who has been praying for him. Holmes takes this as proof that god exists and released him from his bindings(Funny I took it as poor story telling) and then enlists poor Watson on a trip back in time to determine whether Jesus rose from the dead. Of course God also stopped the Arab's steam boat just in time for the rozzers to capture them too.

To facilitate the trip the pair nick HG Well's time traveller's machine. Now James isn't daft enough to have the time machine take them back to 1st Century Palestine. The time machine remains static, so when they arrive at the designated time they are in Hackney and have to get to Palestine by a combination of carts, donkeys, boats and Shank's Pony.

Pursued by a wicked Druid who wants the crystal wand that controls the time machine the pair arrive in time for the crucifiction and ressurection and then head off back to the time machine to arrive back in Hackney 20 minutes before they left.

Along the way the author has Holmes go on and on and on about how an inteligent designer must have created the world, casting Watson as the sceptic (I can't help but think that Watson was more likely to have faith than Holmes) Darwinian evolution theory, and Druidic, Greek and Roman religious systems are rubbished and Watson (the narrator) is banged up in prison while Holmes gets to witness the main event saving the author a whole bunch of work.

You may have guessed that I didn't like this book, to be concise my main reasons are as follows.

1. Holmes is a logical thinker, to paraphrase Doyle once you have eliminated the impossible whatever is left no matter how implausable must be true. That does not stretch to beliving that the universe must have been created by God because its impossible to prove that he does not exist. That's not science that's blind belief

2. Holmes is a detective and there is no deductive reasoning to solve a mystery in this story

3. The sub plot with the wicked druid is just daft, I think it is unlikely that a druid from the then unoccupied Britain, would have had enough influence with the Roman authorities to make Holmes and Watson into wanted men throughout the Roman Empire and therefore they would not need to hide their faces from Roman soldiers, who would have no idea what they looked like anyway as there are no photographs, newspapers or internet cafes yet.

I have no problem an author borrowing ideas from HG Wells (mind you his estate might as they will still hold IP rights), but James seems not to have grasped the idea that if the time machine gets back twenty minutes earlier than it left it will occupy the same space as itself for those twenty minutes, surely it can't physically do that. Also Holmes considers disabling the machine so that nobody else can use it, but changes his mind as the machine can be used for good. Again the author has not considered that if he does disable the machine, then when the Holmes and Watson due to arrive in twenty minutes get there they won't be able to go back etc. and twenty minutes early Holmes will cease to exist at that point in time.

Also while in the 1st Century Watson has to play dumb as he does not understand the languages of the ancient word. Now come on, he is a Doctor who has been educated in the English public school tradition, he would have a bloody good understanding of Latin and most likely some Greek too so that just don't stand up.

Oh yeah and the arguement about who ate the potatoes, Mr James, they didn't arrive in Europe for another 1500 years.

OK I'm not a believer, but I had hoped that the author could have hung a story together better than this. Detail is poorly researched, the borrowed characters are out of character and it is full of bad science, selective application of logic and crackers history. Its little more than a feeble attempt to promote intelligent design as real science when it is non-science and nonsense in my opinion.

I just reached out to tickle Ship's Cat Two and discovered dreadlocks.

Too keen to get her head in the bowl this chowtime her cranium is covered by dried cat food.

Now lets see where is that comb? and the leather gauntlets and the first aid kit?

We took the Powder Monkey to the tower of London today. We went on the Dockland Railway to Tower Gateway, anyway at West India Dock Quay I noticed what looked like a pint of lager or something of similar colour off the side of one of the platforms to which we will come back later.

At the Tower Started off with a tasty meal in Wagamamas which wasn't too bad value at £49 including drinks. I had some noodles cooked with bok choi and chicken in a coconut milk soup it was lovely.

Onto the Tower where Mrs F had spent ages waiting for tickets, while we waited to pay in Wagamamas don't know what it is all about but they love to make us wait don't they!

We spent a couple of hours taking a look at the Crown Jewels and then all the fantastic boys stuff in the White Tower. Aside from loads of guns and swords and a headsman's axe and block they even had a seven barrelled volley gun just like the one Sgt Harper has in Sharpe, is that cool or what?

Then on to the Bloody Tower where you can now vote on whether Richard III murdered his nephews on one of those push button things.

Also had a gander at the Ravens, but not one of them said "Nevermore." (so what's that all about?) and some of the cannon dotted around the place including a really funky one made for the Knights of Malta that has a wee Maltese terrier moulded into the carriage - cute.

On the way out Mrs F remarked that they used to make money there as the Royal Mint used to be in the Tower I reckon at over £15 to get in they are still minting it now!

Now on the way back there were a pair who were a bit pissed on the train. He got on with a bottle of Stella which he necked on the journey. when we changed trains at West India Dock Quay he passed me carrying a pint glass of lager. Yes he had picked that one up and was drinking it five hours after we first spied it!

Lets face it salad is mostly boring, you can pep it up a bit like this.

This will do two people as a side dish.

Drink a bottle of Tiddly Vicar from the Saffron brewery (optional)

Take a gem lettuce, wash it, chop it up and stick it in a bowl. Then roughley chop say twelve cherry toimatoes stick em in the bowl juice and all, add three chopped spring onions and a good handfull of chopped coriander (stalks and all) give it a good mix about with your freshly scrubbed hands.

For the dressing a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil and a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar chuck in in the bowl give it a stir and then chuck a couple of pinches of sesame seeds over the top. Great fresh or chilled from the fridge.

For some reason I made this listening to soundtracks from Sergio Leone westerns, hell it worked for me.

While talking about our impending office move my colleague suggested that we should all adopt fancy dress and come to the office "packing heat".

This new and somewhat disturbing developement led to the following ideas.

Design manager one in a Spiderman costume with one of those dinky little Deringer pistols western saloon girls tuck in their stockings.

Design manager two wants to be a Viking with a bazooka

Finance Manager as a commando with an AK47 (For anyone who has read my last post I guess this is no surprise.)

Ship's Cook reindeer costume with a World War One Lewis gun mounted on his desk. Yes I know that contravenes the new clear desk policy but who is going to try to tell that to a reindeer with a Lewis gun

Two of my lady workmates went to see Jodie Foster's new movie The Brave One last night.

Now one of them left the theatre in tears about how Foster's character becomes a dehumanized killer and the other wanting to buy a gun. The worrying thing is that she is our finance manager!

In other news please excuse the recent paucity of posts and comments, Its not that I don't love you all anymore, but I have been a wee bit busy doing two jobs(for the price of one). Hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as a new copy editor can be found to fill my size 12 boots.

Bosun Gravy and I took the jolly boat down to Mr Sainsbury's emporium to look at the wares he had on offer.

"Arr the scurvy shop be near on empty" Gravy said "Hardly a morsal in sight, what can we eat Cook?"

"Well there be some prawns, chanterell mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes so how about a risotto?" said I

"Huzzah said the crew can we listen to Siouxsie's Manta Ray while you knock it out?"

First of all make some fish stock, don't mess around with fish bits just boil two pints of water in the kettle, pour it in a saucepan and add two fish stock cubes - easy.

Then open the sundried tomatoes up and pour the flavoured oil in another pan and chuck in a chopped onion, two or three chillis and five cloves of garlic.

When the onions start to colour add enough rice for however many people you are feeding and give it a stir for a few moments then sling in a glass of white wine or even better a good quality white vermouth like Noilly Prat.

OK this is the bit that requires attention as the rice cooks keep it moist by adding a couple of spoonfuls of stock every now and again. As its cooking sling in the sundried toms, a whole bunch of chopped coriander, some dried oregano (or any other herbs that take your fancy), tear up the mushrooms and sling them in, add a couple of twists of black pepper and finally the prawns.

You will know when its done as the rice will have absorbed all of the stock and be kind of gloopy.

Plate it up and break a lump of Feta Cheese over the top, serve with some garlic bread and a nice crisp white Italian wine, lovely!

This book seemed to have a lot going for it as far as Cook was concerned. Fighting ships, a new hero in the mould of Jack Aubrey or Horatio Hornblower and a touch of the supernatural.

1808 and HMS Fortitude is harrying the Spanish treasure galleons out of Manilla. This is the story of First Lieutenant Bonaventure serving under the prize hungry Captain Ross. Blown off course into the Southern Seas after a battle with a galleon Fortitude tracks it down to a mysterious island only to discover that not only have the Spaniards have all turned into psycho loonies, but there is a cave full of monsters and a volcano to boot. On the way Bonaventure falls in love with a South Sea island chick, has a bit of a barny with some bat like critters and does all the usual agonising over being second in command to a flogging captain.

Only thing was it wasn't terribly well done. Roberson's research had a number of holes in it and he really did not know his way round a 28 gun frigate. Bonaventure's English was too modern American, I never heard Hornblower refer to himself as the captain's executive officer for example and he made a number of elementary mistakes like giving the ship's Royal Marine officer a navy rank.

The strange creatures were never really explained to my satisfaction - did they evolve or were they supernatural- and why if some malevolence on the island drove the Spaniards all barmy didn't at least some of Bonaventure's landing party go nuts?

I guess my problem with the story is that someone like the late Patrick O'Brian was able to tell much the same sort of story, but replacing the supernatural elements with the sense of wonder that the sailors of the late 18th and early 19th century must have felt when meeting strange new and sometimes hostile cultures in the days before widespread literacy, global news and TV.

Apparently Bonaventure will later travel through space and time meeting up with other Bonaventure family members, in a similar way to Moorcock's Von Bek family and members of Kim Newman's Diogenes Club. I'm prepared to give him another chance, but only one.

We are seeing lots of stuff blaming travellers for fucking up the environment right now so here is a question for Gordon Brown, Call me Dave and Richard Branson.

How come when the train is so much greener than the plane, you can book cheap domestic flights to places like Scotland months before you can even book a standard insanely expensive rail ticket?

If you want people off aircraft then make rail tickets easy to understand and have the cheap deals available at the same time that the budget airlines do. Otherwise people who might prefer to take the train (as I would) end up flying because they need to forward plan their time, having things like jobs and stuff.

The fare structure on trains is obscenely complex, how can standard tickets from London to Liverpool cost between £12.50 and £101,and how come its often cheaper to buy two singles than a return?

So I contend its not us the travellers who are guilty of screwing the environment but the anti-competative practice of the railway companies.

Come on rail operators stop making life hard for the poor traveller, make intercity tickets one simple price, bookable six months in advance (instead of the present arbitrary 12 weeks for some journeys six for another) and you will get people off planes.

Come on Gordon stop wringing your hands and do something positive here, make the railways compete with the Airlines on the same conditions rather than just bunging an easy tax win on air passengers (oh they are so evil)disguised as envirnomentalism, every budget.

If the answer is "Well we don't want to interfear with the way private busines runs its affairs" No but it never stops the government from mugging private individuals to pay for things like illegal wars does it.

Oh and Dave are you stil cycling to work being followed by your official motor or have you given up that daft publicity stunt?

Ship's Cat two here and what a day I've had.

First off the Fat cook locked me in the kitchen at around two in the morning, said it was too early for breakfast the bastard.

Then after I finally got fed he shut me in the dining room so I didn't get a chance to have a go at Ship's Cat One's bnreaakfast. well no sooner do I escape upstairs into the bathroom, when as I'm minding my own business running about and things and the female monkey deliberately stamps on my foot.

So I go downstairs and he's got the cat basket in the kitchen. Good I think he must be taking my brother to the vet to have pins stuck in him. But imagine my horror when he lets him into the garden, closing the door so I can't get out, bugger its for me and just because a girl likes to keep her bikini line trim and tidy, I'm bundled off in the car to the vets where I'm subjected to all manner of indignity and terrorized by a Staf and another stupid dog.

Just wait till he gets home tonight, I'll have a surprise waiting for him!

OK everyone thinks (except the crowd in tiny smug spex and the managers who believed it was a great design because it cost so much) that the 2012 logo is a bit shit and yes if I were Matt Groening I'd be phoning my lawyer.

What to do, Well look at past sporting events and you see some funky little creature like Cobi the dog for the Barcelona Olympics or World Cup Willy for Mexico 1970. Not only memorable but also great for licensing everthing from toys to fag lighters(typically the Spanish sold Cobi lighters as smoking is so good for atheletes)which will help to offset the obscene cost of forcing universal sports coverage on the nation for god knows how many weeks.

My answer Bill the Olympic Badger and his wheelbarrow of sporting kittens, each one in a tiny sports kit: equestrian, track, martial arts, swimming and tennis, complete with tiny raquets, javelins and discuss. Oh and maybe an otter tacked up as a pony for the equestrian kitten to ride.

Well lets face it, it can't be any worse than what we have already.