Great to be back online again, after holidays and site upgrades have kept me away.

I missed the chance to comment on the idea that we should spell our words any way we want, blaming mobiles and text messages for the decline in spelling standards. Just shut up moaning about spelling and learn how to do it properly, you lazy lot. It can't be that hard if I can do it.

I’ve missed the chance to comment on so many things. Fuel prices have hit the heights and fallen back a little. Gordon and his chums still seem to think it is fair and reasonable to completely knacker the second-hand car marker for family sized cars. Specifically attacking any car that might be used by someone who lives in the country (especially 4WDs), in case they might be a Toff. Poor deluded simpletons, the Toffs aren’t affected by anything Gordon and the little band of followers do, living well above the effects of government. It is the ordinary working people of the country who pay all Gordon’s taxes and suffer all governments new “initiatives” because they have no choices at all.

My sister and her family live in a house two miles down a farm track and can’t switch to public transport because the bus won’t go down there (what a surprise). Of course they could live under a tarpaulin somewhere near a bus stop, but then the farm would suffer and the crops that feed us all would go unattended and die. We’d have to bring in more food from abroad costing more “food miles”. So come on Gordon, make a flipping decision for once, reduce car taxation and fuel costs to keep the country working.

Russian Troops move into Georgia. A very scary reminder of my teenage days, when we wondered whether anything would survive the seeminly inevitable nuclear holocaust. Important topics were the thickness of earth needed to keep radiation out (1 metre?), or better still concrete (6 inches?), or even better lead sheeting. Atomic half-life and how long before you could come out to see what has happened. I suppose we all thought rather optimistically thought we’d be survivors. That’s teenage immortality for you, we all feared the end of the world but were pretty sure we’d survive somehow. I am so glad we didn’t have to.

It does go some way to proving that the closer we are in trading, legislation, taxation, general living conditions and opportunities, the less likely we are to argue over borders. The costs of the EU are a small price to pay for peace in so many countries, that fought so many wars, so often. That is one of the reasons I’m coming round to the view that sharing a single currency is a good idea. By the time we’ve finished spending on Tony’s war in Iraq, the Pound Sterling will be on a par with the Euro anyway. Waging war costs money, is a huge drain on the treasury, and leads to gradual devaluation of any country’s currency.

It's also great to be back after our holidays in Robin Hood's Bay. We saw the Sun most days so that has to count as a brilliant holiday!