What momentous and exciting times here in Albion this week, I can hardly contain myself.

The chief exec, Lord Browne of British Petroleum and one of our top businessmen perjures himself in court; allegedly he met his male lover through an escort agency and not elsewhere as stated. Lord Browne said three times in court documents that he had met Canadian-born Mr Chevalier jogging in Battersea Park, south London. But in fact the court was given documentary evidence that he met him through an escort agency. Serious stuff for the perhaps aptly named lord, as it occurs to me.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../nbrowne02.xml

Then we have the serious case of two teenage girls issued with £60 fixed penalty fines for drawing on the road with so-called pavement chalk,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/6605107.stm
doubtless some increased police awareness after a 5 year old was warned by the boys in blue for chalking a hopscotch square in his cul-de-sac:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

Of some importance is the Govt plan to fund parenting projects to the level of 30,000,000 UKP in order to teach young parents the art of singing their children to sleep at night; after the spate this week of teenagers shooting each other with handguns perhaps this may serve to correct the tendency in the future, however, since all handguns have been banned here for years I can only deduce the education system is working exceedingly well and the kids are knocking the things up in metalwork classes.

However, it all palls into insignificance compared to the actions of those official guardians of the consumer, known to us as Trading Standards. In a lightning swoop on a semi-local family bakery the owner was ordered to remove from sale and re-name the fancy mini cakes and baked slices.

Apparently "Paradise" slices are not made in paradise and thus are illegally named, worse, the fancy cakes decorated with either a robin or pig as a sweet confectionary decoration do not contain respectively any of the red-breasted bird or pork products and so have also fallen foul of the law.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770
By the same token we can shortly therefore expect the demise of these English staples; Cottage Pie, Shepherd's Pie, Bath and Chelsea Buns, Toad in the Hole, Bangers and Mash, Angel Cakes, Butterfly Buns and many more that you can think of. Certainly that's the end of Spotted Dick and Swiss Rolls for ever.

Other important and more encouraging news this week concerns the sudden and copious loss of Veare's winter fur owing to the several recent weeks of very warm and summery weather necessitating a regular and robust brushing with the steel toothed comb, plus the most excellent performance of your author's self-invested pension obtained by the epitome of detailed, timely and accurate advice from a professional advisor which will see the pair of us, and cat, out of this inmate run asylum in 2.5 years time.

I can't wait.

R.