SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS BEFORE A WINTER BREAK

I was interested to read in the Daily Telegraph that Prince Michael has revealed that members of the royal family were not obliged to take part in the lottery of tickets for the Olympics. They were simply asked what event they wanted tickets for, and they got them. What it is to have connections, huh?


Staying with the Royals and the Olympics, I expect that when Blair put so much effort into securing them for London, it never occurred to him that they would be taking place at the same time as the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Apparently, when the Olympics are on, they will be the only show in town. No one will have time or energy for anything else, and so the Queen has been forced to concentrate all the celebrations of her jubilee in the first 6 months of the year. I guess that means that come August in Scotland we can expect to have wall to wall Olympics rammed down our throats. Yippee, I can hardly wait.

Apparently the jubilee celebrations will include a horse pageant in London, with 500 horses from all over the world. Alan Titchmarch described it as "the most wonderful and appropriate celebration". So, I suppose it must be then, seeing as Alan Titchmarsh said so.

Talking about royalty, David Cameron has chartered a Virgin plane for a tour of the Middle East. What his staff neglected to take into consideration was that he will be flying into Saudi Arabia, and that Virgin planes have a model of a scantily dressed redhead as their motif. The arrival in Saudi of a British Prime minister on a plane with a half nude female isn't thought to be a great idea, especially when the trip almost undoubtedly a 'begging bowl, please buy our stuff', kind of visit. I wonder how much we pay these people.


Harriet Harman's husband, Jack Dromey is in a spot of bother over the small matter of forgetting to declare his salary from Unite in the Commons register of interests. £27,867 may be chicken feed to him, but for a lot of his constituents it's two or three or even four years' income. Socialists...pffff?

According to the Daily Mail, Foxy was seen yesterday skulking outside the Carlton Club where his young friend,Adam Werritty, was taking luncheon, dressed, apparently, in an expensive hand-made suit. Maybe they only had enough money left for one of them to eat, and the other one just hung about outside? And maybe not.

Well that's it...I'm heading off to Paris for a few days to indulge in some of my favourite occupations: speaking French, enjoying decent coffee, meeting up with mates from all over the world, and going to a big Petula Clark concert. So these few random observations comprise the last post for a week or so. I'll see you quand je serai de retour. Au revoir pour le  présent!