'Why am I always on a plane or a fast train?' as Rufus Wainwright once asked. I've been all over the country over the last few days - London, Newcastle, Glasgow, blah blah blah, blahdiblahblah. But I'm finally at home today - all day - with the Boll, and rain outside, and the Olympics on TV.

I'm cross with Nature. Last night, I decided to water the plants. And, as I was pootling with my watering can, something landed on my head. It was a poo.

I was somewhat taken aback as I couldn't see any birds. But then I heard the distant twittering of swallows and realised there was a bunch of the little b*****s flying around about a mile up in the sky. They'd clearly taken great pains to aim directly at me. It was pure swallow malice.

I then retired to shampoo my head and .... it started raining, rendering my sprinklings completely pointless.

Nature hates me. I hate Nature.

I was in/on Primrose Hill yesterday. If you're not familiar, it's a posh residential area on a hill, where lots of celebs live, with a fabulous view over London.

I googled Primrose Hill afterwards for some photos and stumbled on a splendid website.

It features Cuddly Bear from Harpenden in Hertfordshire, who travels the world and makes sure he gets photographed wherever he goes.

Cuddly Bear on Primrose Hill

gratuitous cat pic - airline ad from the 1950s

It always amuses me when airline cabin crew get bored and start playing up. Last night, when we landed, our camp trolley-dolly announced -

'Please refrain from smoking until within a smoking area outside the terminal building. We appreciate your patience as WE HAVEN'T HAD A SMOKE SINCE 11AM AND WE'RE DESPERATE.'

He then added -

'Please remember to take all your belongings with you. You know - children, husbands, that sort of thing.'

Torrres and Motson

Congratulations to Fernando Torres on a fantastic goal, clinching Euro 2008 for Spain.

Sad news that it was John Motson's last international commentary though. I just love Motson's voice and think he should join the RSC on his retirement, playing all of Shakespeare's heroes.

I also like the fact that, after 37 years of broadcasting, he still steadfastly refuses to pronounce foreign names in a totally foreign way. There was a classic during the final, as he introduced a pop singer he'd clearly never heard of.

'And now the Euro 2008 song, performed by Enreek Ingleessiass.'

The Queen

I like the Queen. Regardless of whether you're a royalist or not, you've got to admire her. She can't help being the Queen. She didn't choose to be. And she makes a jolly good job of it.

This week, I heard the best Queen story ever. Apparently, even at the age of 82, she likes dancing to Abba. Recently, they played Dancing Queen at a post-dinner dance at Windsor.

She was on the floor and everybody said, 'My goodness, there's the Dancing Queen.'

She was then overheard saying, 'I always try to dance when this song comes on because I am the Queen and I like to dance.'

gratuitous photo of corgis

I was in a newsagents the other day.

Just as I was was about to buy my copy of the Radio Times, a stately and pious-looking gentleman wearing a turban sidled in and stood next to me scanning the shelves. He was furtively scouring every section as if urgently searching for a particular mag. And his gaze kept straying to the top shelf.

Being of a curious bent, I just had to stay and find out what he was after. It was clearly some kind of specialist porn.

'ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR?' asked the assistant after a few minutes.

'Yes,' he replied, as I looked on aghast. He had a meek, mild-mannered voice and a Birmingham accent.

'Do you have any magazines about trucks?'

I forgot where I was on Wednesday night. I was actually in Birmingham, in the rather pleasing Novotel (four stars, nice food) but it looked very much like lots of other hotel rooms. For a minute or so, I seriously thought I was in Glasgow.

It's all been a bit manic over the last few weeks. I was cat-sitting in Essex. Then I was in London yesterday. Tomorrow I'm in Cambridge. Monday I'm in the wilds of Norfolk (on the BBC Springwatch nature reserve - no magpies I hope).

But I'm at home today with the Boll. I love being at home. The older I get, the more I just want to be here in Hertford. We're going to pootle around and then watch Eurovision.

I spent yesterday pootling around Soho and Covent Garden, where I encountered two of my relatives - placed there by New York floral designer Preston Bailey.

Preston Bailey and friend

I was deeply shocked the other day when a friend from the south admitted she'd never heard of Alnwick in Northumberland.

Alnwick is considered one of the most picturesque towns in the UK. It has an imposing medieval castle (the second biggest inhabited castle in the UK, after Windsor). It was home to the Percy family, including Hotspur. It featured as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. And Alnwick was recently declared the 'best place to live in Britain' by Country Life magazine.

So there.

I received an odd email this morning and wasn't sure whether it was spam or not, so I opened it. It announced

Grand Duke of All Russia Valery Kubarev Big Kubensky (Flavy Valery
Cubara - Jacob Constantine XV) declares the World Gathering descendants
of the Byzantium Emperors, Vikings, Rurik's (Monomachos), Hashemite's,
son of Buddha Rahula, Confucius from dynasty Duke Yansheng, Genghis
Khan, daughters of Miuko from Japan, Incas from America. All of us are
lineal descendants of the God-Father Cub.

Anxious to discover whether I was descended from the God-Father Cub, I visited Big Kubensky's website and was informed that

Jesus Christ Zlatoust has decided to resemble the God-Father, the space navigator and Russian Varyag, Kubera-Cub. Zlatoust has chosen to itself seven wives and also has left the seven dynasties on the Earth, conducting started from him and Virgin Maria. Here these dynasties… Jesus Christ's all descendants it is possible to name Zlatoust’ or on Byzantium like – Nazareth’s.

Could someone please explain?

I love it. It's the ultimate man bites dog story.

According to The Prison Officers Association, prisoners love prison and would rather stay inside than escape. This is because they can easily get hold of drugs, mobile phones (cell phones surely?) and sex.

Apparently, one dealer regularly broke into a prison in Yorkshire by using a ladder to get into the cell windows. But none of the inmates ever bothered using the ladder to escape.

I can hear it now: 'I sentence you to three years in the real world, with no access to prison for good behaviour.'

I've not been peacockshocking for a few days. This is because I've been all over the place - geographically, not mentally.

Last week I was media training at a famous thinktank in St James's, London. Can't tell you which one. Chatham House rule applies.

Then I flew up to Glasgow to do TV training with some teens.

I was then back in London to train political journalists in Westminster in the noble art of humiliating MPs.

And that was followed by a TV training day at a leading muesli company.

No peace for the wicked. Sometimes I ask myself, quoting Rufus Wainwright, 'why am I always on a plane or a fast train?' But I love it really. In an odd way.

And I'm actually in Hertford all week next week - so you can expect more homely observations from the Peacock nest.

Breaking News. Vietnam has launched a crackdown on hamsters. From today, anyone caught in possession of a hamster will be fined 30 million dong (£1000). This is because pet hamsters are being smuggled in from Thailand without going through quarantine.

Government official Nguyen Thanh Son said, 'People should see how dangerous the hamsters in Vietnam really are.'

I'll keep you posted on this. Otherwise - I sugest you watch Sky News. They're sure to be providing 24-hour coverage.

Mehdi Kazemi is 19 and has been studying English in the UK. Now, the Home Secretary seems to be on the verge of sending him back to Tehran, where he'll almost certainly be hanged - just because he's gay.

The Home Office have an interesting take on this.

As Mehdi faces deportation and death thanks to them, they're at pains to point out how caring they are. Commenting indirectly on Mehdi, a Home Office spokesperson has said, 'The UK Government is committed to providing protection for those individuals found to be genuinely in need.'

Meanwhile, they officially reject the claim that there's systematic repression of gay men and lesbians in Iran. Fair enough. A bit of light hanging never harmed anyone.

Conwy Castle

I've just got back from the most distant corner of north west Wales. It too six hours to get there. The train journey took me down the spooky shoreline at dusk, and through a tunnel under the 13th century Conwy Castle.

My destination was the BBC in Bangor - where 46% of the people speak Welsh and the other 54% seem to be students from England.

The BBC's Light Entertainment Department moved to Broadcasting House Bangor during the Second World War to escape the bombs, and many episodes of ITMA were recorded there.

The Beatles also visited the town in the 60s, to meet the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He wasn't Welsh. He just lived there for a while.

I stayed in nearby Caernarfon, at the Celtic Royal, which was excellent and had a good swimming pool. You can see Anglesey from Caernarfon and I was surprised at how close it was. Apparently, you can just about walk to the island when the tide's out.

Hello. How are you? I've been preposterously busy, which is why I haven't poked my peacock beak through your screen over the last week. And now I'm off to north Wales for the BBC. Nice hotel by the looks of it, in Caernarfon. It's all go. But I'll be back soon.

I watched Almodóvar's All About My Mother yesterday and rather liked the line - 'The more you become like what you have dreamed for yourself, the more authentic you are.'

Men are rubbish in supermarkets. I recently burbled on about the random way they stack their baskets. Now, I've noticed a new and equally annoying tendency - 'shopping by mobile'.

'Hello, it's me,' said a hassled-looking 40-something yesterday in Tesco. 'I'm by the Chicken Kievs. But there are lots and lots of them. Which Kiev did you want in particular? OK. I'll list them. There's......'

Why the phone? Why did his wife (he looked like he had a wife) stay at home when she knew precisely which Kiev she wanted? Can't these people shop together? Don't they have nannies?

Women are sadly no better. Increasing numbers of them appear to have developed acute 'Checkout Vagueness Syndrome'.

There was a spectacular example of it today in Waitrose. It was time for the woman in front of me to pay. And she must have spent at least three minutes twitting about in her purse for the right credit card which she could have located while in the queue.

Then she took a geological age to pack her bags, moving her prawns from bag to bag between three bags for no apparent reason. Then she realised she hadn't put her card back and did that in slow motion.

It was like watching a winning football team slowly nudging and pingling the ball round the field to fill time until the ref blows the whistle.

And then she stood there. Just stood there, staring into the middle distance. What was she doing? Silently reciting The Iliad to herself?

Meanwhile, the poor check-out boy had already started scanning my Special K with Red Berries and had nowhere to put it. We just exchanged glances and raised eyebrows.

After about a minute of vague staring, she put her gloves on with meticulous slowness and idled out like she was strolling down a beach in the Maldives.

Supermarket ditherers are a blight on our society and ought to be publicly hanged in Tesco carparks.

dog (middle of pic, with person in orange) and cat (slightly to right) playing peepo on train

I was on a train with Boll the other day. And Boll wasn't alone. The carriage was alarmingly full of cats and dogs. Bolls was asleep in her box. But there was a rather noisy and curious Siamese kitten across the aisle running around on a lead. And a pointy-eared dog sitting ominously near to it.

As Bolly slept, they played cat and mouse (so to speak) for several hours - peeping out at each other and amusing the bored passengers.

It's good to know that boxer Amir Khan trains at London's Peacock Gym, where Bolly the cat works part-time as a personal trainer.

I watched Amir winning last night - all 72 seconds of it.

That means - for the fans who paid £160 for a ticket - one second cost £2.20

Let's hope Amir spends it all down at the Peacock.

Call me old-fashioned, but if I was pretending to be dead, I wouldn’t agree to have my photo taken, clearly still alive, smiling in a jolly fashion with my ‘bereaved’ partner, and give permission for it to be emblazoned on a property website for the entire world to see.

And - if I was involved in a con trick and wanted to appear innocent - I wouldn’t relocate mysteriously to central America.

And if I was going to pretend to return to society after five years of amnesia, having conned an insurance company, I wouldn’t show up just six weeks after my partner had run off abroad with the insurance cash.

Do not approach this bear in any circumstances. He is dangerous. Police in Sudan say he is an infidel and is known to advocate blasphemy and idolatry.

The suspect is 10 inches tall and fluffy, with a large head and cute paws.

I've long been a huge fan of Andre Jordan's internet doodles. And now you can have your very own book full of them.

Hello. I'm back from foreign parts.

Hello from the BBC’s Inverness newsroom, where we’re chasing a story about Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong. He’s being flown up here at 11pm on Friday night in a private jet and Inverness Airport is being opened up specially for him. This is so he can play a late-night set at a local nightclub.

Inverness is the fastest-growing city in the UK and has a huge new community of 8000 migrant Poles. They even have their own delicatessen and there are rumours of a Polish language radio station.

Famous residents include Macbeth, the Loch Ness Monster (just down the road from here) and lots of dolphins, in the Moray Firth.

Some of the locals speak Gaelic, but most speak English and are considered to have the clearest diction in the UK.

Inverness is also the subject of one of the best headlines ever, referring to the trouncing of Celtic by local team Inverness Caledonian Thistle (aka ‘Caley’) – ‘Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious.’

Hello. Are you still there? Good.

Are you sure you're there? Really? Excellent.

I'm not entirely sure where I am. I've not disappeared. I'm just having an insanely frantic month. Mum and Dad came to stay after I got back from Scotland. Now they've headed back up north and I'm off to Scotland again for another BBC week in the Highlands.

Bye. Off to Gatwick. Or is it Heathrow?

I walked down Oxford Street this morning at 8.30, from Oxford Circus to Bond Street. A ten minute stroll, during which I encountered -

A young vicar with dreadlocks, barking 'yes mate' repeatedly into his mobile.

Four topless male models posing with Selfridges bags for a photoshoot (it was very cold).

An elderly baglady in front of a department store, gazing with rapt attention at a Christmas display of singing teddybears.

I've spent a lot of time at Inverness Airport recently and - in my considered opinion - the security staff are insane.

Why do they insist on scanning my passport? Why do they frisk me like maniacs every time I go near them?

A few weeks ago, I observed a teenager going through security eating chips. There were three chips left in his cardboard box. Three. They made him put them through the scanner.

And I know someone whose granny was forced to remove her hat in case it was concealing weapons of mass destruction.

The granny in question is 92 and in a wheelchair.

me in Inverness

Hello. I'm now back home with the Boll after a week at the BBC in the Highlands.

I was very sad to hear about Ned Sherrin's death today. I knew Ned and worked with him when I was a reporter on Radio 4's Loose Ends. He was a lovely chap - very witty and generous - and I'll miss seeing him around BH and listening to him on the radio.

photo I took of Ned
while recording in
Edinburgh

I'm appearing (in a somewhat odd context) on Radio 4's 40th Birthday programme at the weekend. It's followed by a comedy special with Radio 4 regular Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas (Little Britain was on Radio 4 before TV).

Genius. A site dedicated to stuff on cats

Jesus goes clubbing

What's all the fuss about? I used to go clubbing with Jesus myself. Jesus is a friend of mine from Spain, where the name's not that unusual.

British troops are finally withdrawing from Basra. It's cost us £80 million a month to be there. Almost 170 British soldiers have been killed - not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqis. And - according to the Lancet - the people of Iraq are now 58 times more likely to die a violent death than they were before the invasion.

It's good to know that the latest hurricane has the grand and cat-related name of Felix. Hurricane Dean upset me greatly. I couldn't take it seriously. What next? Hurricane Darren? Hurricane Paige?

It's quite a business naming hurricanes. There's an approved list every year, but some names aren't revived. Betsy, Agnes and Hattie have been 'retired' - sacked for bad behaviour.

There's never been a hurricane called Ian. But there was a disappointing tropical cyclone called Ian in 1992.

I hit the coast of Australia but just pootled around a bit before running out of energy. Plus ça change...

My next door neighbours went to Clacton on Sea today - to a 'no dogs allowed' beach. But, despite the restriction, they noticed a large fluffy creature on a lead running round a deckchair and occasionally taking a drink from its water bowl. On closer inspection, it turned out to be ... a rabbit.

Hi (Sawadee Crap). I'm now back from Bangkok, where I was doing TV interviews with diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Being August, it was the rainy season, but the sun was pretty fierce most mornings. Temperatures hovered, as usual, around 33° C and I had to wear a suit and tie. Marvelous.

One of the highlights was a 12-course Chinese banquet hosted by one of the ambassadors, with shark's fin soup, abalone snails and a whole suckling pig.

I learnt a few new Thai phrases this time, such as: 'yin dee don rap zu studio' - welcome to the studio.

Kop Kun Crap.

the view from my 16th floor bedroom - over the hotel pool (6th floor) and the rarely-used helipad (10th floor) where the staff played football most evenings

We spent our one day off in a rainforest visiting a traditional 'homestay' house on stilts.

It was made of ancient teak. Because teak trees are so wide, it only had seven floorboards.

In the evening, we took a trip down the river which the house was on. The river was allegedly haunted and had spirit houses (mini temples on stilts) for the local ghosts.

This stretch of river was also famous for fireflies. Our mysterious guide seemed to know exactly where they lived. Most of the fireflies flashed on and off completely in synch. But some hadn't quite managed the art of synchronised flashing and lit up in sequence like a Mexican wave.

Our boatman also shone his torch up to the top of the trees so we could see the egrets sleeping.

It was quite cool on the river - plummeting to a mere 30°C by 10pm.

setting sail

an old lady on her way home from the floating market

deserted house on the haunted river

As a souvenir of this year's Bangkok expedition, I bought a Thai notebook. As you can see from the photo, the cover contains some classic lines, such as -

Have fun and make your original one!

365 days' recollection life design.

A drawing. Become a greatest artist someday.

The others. Keep precious memories in this notebook. Keep it with you whenever you go.

Artbo. Everythey.

Monday - Inverness
Tuesday - London
Wednesday - Newcastle
Thursday - Hertford
Friday - Amsterdam
Saturday - Bangkok

As you can see, I'm having a rather busy week. Bolly's having a short summer break with my parents. I'll report back when I return from Thailand where I'm doing TV things.

As I write, I'm on hold to BT again, listening to the jolly BT mantra: 'Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay'. I hope the voiceover thesp who recorded this gets repeat fees.

I also hope the resident on-hold BT saxophonist gets decent royalties. The poor creature must have dangerously chapped lips.

Since reluctantly 'coming back' to BT three days ago (in order to get a Sky phone package) I've been kept on hold for a total of one hour and 57 minutes. I've had my middle name mysteriously changed so that my BT details don't match my bank details. They've set up a direct debit for £41 a month instead of the promised £11. And the woman I phoned this morning at 9am (after a 27 minute wait) greeted me with a cheery 'good afternoon'.

Apparently the £41 cock-up happened 'because we use computers'.

And they apparently misheard me when I spelt out my middle initial (saying, very clearly, 'G' as in 'God' ).

Sorry BT. That must because I mumble so unintelligibly. Being a radio presenter and voice trainer, I must admit I do find it hard to get my words out.

I'm still on hold. The reason I'm phoning again is that Billings were able to correct my middle initial, but I have to phone Accounts separately to alter it, as they're on a different system.

It's good to talk.

It's Frank's Birthday! Happy Birthday Frank! Frank is a genius and nice person, despite his extreme age.

I've just spent a week in a village called Braemar in the Scottish Highlands. It's where they have the annual Braemar Gathering (Highland Games attended by the Queen). The area's known as Royal Deeside because Queen Victoria fell in love with it and lived in a cottage in the grounds of Balmoral Castle when she was an old lady.

We also visited Aberdeen where I was impressed by the Parisian-style university area, the botanical gardens and the phenomenal precision of the local accent. Everyone sounded like an elocution teacher.

I didn't see any deer, but I did see a few highland cows and, at one point, a llama. I've no idea what it was doing on a rainswept moor surrounded by sheep. But it was definitely a llama and I was entirely sober when I saw it.

I also met an old man in Ballater who had a chihuahua up his jumper and a spaniel in a pram. He explained that the spaniel was elderly and only had three legs.

Balmoral Castle grounds were picturesque, but the castle itself was a bit bourgeois. The patio had crazy paving. I stole a royal pine cone while I was there and hereby apologise to Her Majesty.

Balmoral

view from my hotel room

the old man of Ballater

The Queen, realising one of her pine cones is missing

I'm now on facebook because everybody is, so you have to be. It's a bit more user-friendly than myspace and I like the minimalist design. The names of some of the groups are rather amusing too. Purely because of their names, I'm thinking of joining the groups called:

The drunken text appreciation society

People who always have to spell their names for other people

and

If you can't differentiate between 'you're' and 'your', you deserve to die

Windows Vista was causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the UKPress forum today, so I penned a small limerick during my afternoon tea break. It's proved rather popular so I thought I'd share it here on Peacockshock.

There once was a princess called Vista
(XP's quite erratic young sister).
She was all me, me, me
And usurped old XP
(Oh how the poor populace missed her).

click to access BBC petition page

Various acquaintances (mostly male ones in the media, for some odd reason) have recently taken to starting their emails with 'Ian, hi' as opposed to 'Hi Ian'.

Then I was in Caffè Nero this morning, and the guy in front of me said, 'Thanks, yes' when asked if he wanted cinnamon on his latte.

Ian, hi?

Thanks, yes?

Heavens to Betsy. The young are ruining our language.

arrow photos

Peacockshock has now successfully migrated to its new perch (ie. server) and full plumage is now resumed.

A quick plug for my media consultancy Talk

If you'd like some voice training (with an experienced BBC-trained professional coach) or media training in general, or would like to make a radio programme in a day with your colleagues or friends, email info@talkconsultancy.com and the team will get back to you.

We're currently running a summer discount on one-to-one voice coaching. Our approach is friendly, fun and totally unthreatening. And you'll leave with a CD or MP3 of your voice which you could use as a demo.

End of plug. Thank you.

My professional site ianpeacock.com has been redesigned, with new studio photos and clickable sound snippets. You can hear me reporting on Japanese English, having an argument with Dr Laura Schlessinger and trying to get the British public to show off. The site was designed by the wondrous frankweb

Me, trying to look mean and moody, on ianpeacock.com

Gosh. What a week. Peacockshock has spent the last few days migrating to a new server. The migration is now almost complete. Full plumage will resume soon.

Hello. My name's IBM, but sometimes it's Ham.

For some odd reason, my predictive texting system seems to think 'IBM' and 'Ham' are more popular words than 'Ian' and who am I to doubt it? But I find it odd (and a touch Dan Brown) that my phone writes 'nun' instead of 'mum'.

Sometimes, a so-called 'textonym' is actually an antonym, as in 'reject' which comes up as 'select'. And 'Newham' (a part of East London not renowned for its glamour) renames itself on my phone as 'Mexico'.

I also like
'barmaid' - 'carnage'
'Smirnoff' - 'poisoned'
'kiss' - 'lips'
'home' - 'good'
and 'cock' - no, don't go there unless you're 100% unshockable.

Now, in a fabulous Saussurian twist, yoofs and students are using the first options suggested by texting instead of the words themselves. 'Book' now means 'cool' (and has even made it into a Streets track) and students in Cardiff apparently call the Welsh capital 'Barehed'.

They now have predictive text-offs in the US, where they have to type words like 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' and everyday phrases such as 'The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera serrasalmus and pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world.'

The 2007 international predictive texter of the year is a teenager called Morgan Pozgar - a name which itself reads like a terrible texting mistake.

CUL8R

Is it me, or is TV news writing getting worse and filling up with more and more redundant words?

This morning, we were informed that, in a 'pre-planned operation' (pre-planned??? - surely 'planned' will do), a man was 'arrested by police' (by police??? - good to know it was by the police and not by a horse or a chaffinch).

As they say in TV news circles - 'thank you very much indeed for that' (ie thank you).

Here are my favourite lyrics from this year's entries.

Russia

Artist - Serebro
Title - Song Number One

Oh, don't call me funny bunny.
I'll blow your money, money.
I'll get you to my bad ass spinning for you.
Gotta tease you nasty guy
So take it don't be shy.
Put your cherry on my cake
And taste my cherry pie.

Bulgaria

Artists - Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov
Title - Water

There's a young lad coming from the village
Mitra-lassiee, Mitra-lass.
Walking by his side is a wild young pony
Mitra-lassiee, Mitra-lass.
See him walking there!
Hear him singing Eeeeee!

Czech Republic

Artist - Kabat
Title - Little Lady

Her den is there by the railway.
She collects coins from fountains
And puts them on the tracks.
She's building a temple, a tin bridge.
The first guest is coming over
So at least his legs won't hurt.

Ukraine

Artist - Verka Serdyuchka
Title - Dancing Lasha Tumbai

Hello everybody!
My name is Verka Serdyuchka!
Me English don't understand!
Let's speak Dance!
Seven, seven, ai lyu lyu!
Seven, seven, one, two!
Seven, seven, ai lyu lyu!
One, two, three!

United Kingdom

Artist - Scooch
Title - Flying The Flag

Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da,
Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da,
Duty free madam?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

full Scooch lyrics

A newsreader has just announced that Tony Blair has announced that he's going to announce - tomorrow - that he's going to resign.

A nice artist with the surname Griffin emailed me the other day about some photos of microbes on Peacockshock and I meant to reply, but I deleted the email by mistake (I plead paint fumes). So I'd be grateful if the artist named Griffin could email me again. Thank you.

The Essex Girl with laryngitis at Virgin Media has just told me that her system is down.

I was phoning her because a Virgin Media engineer called my answerphone this morning to say I hadn't answered the door. That was because I was in London. I'd cancelled him, via a woman in India, but she clearly hadn't told him.

Earlier this evening, I spoke to a strangulated and barely intelligible Glaswegian person in one of Virgin Media's geographically-diverse call centres. This was to complain that I couldn't get TV on Demand. He said his system was down and put me through to Virgin's 'technical team' who still appear to be part of NTL according to their answerphone. After their answerphone informed me of this, the line went dead.

I may be defecting to Sky very soon. Can't think why.

I got myself into a Branson Pickle this morning after losing my Virgin Media Broadband connection yet again. I've now got it back, after writhing around behind the TV and fiddling randomly with cables. I felt like Jacques Cousteau being eaten by a squid.

Virgin's solution was to put me through to India, then Wales, and to arrange for an engineer to come out ... next Tuesday.

The call centre people were perfectly nice. But why, why, why, oh why does their automatic voice person sound like a gibbon being tortured? When there are so many out-of-work actors with pleasing Rada-type voices, why do call centres use these whining voiceover creatures desperately trying to sound like your best pal? Do they have a special breeding centre for them in Essex?

Perhaps Virgin could offer Moira Stuart a job. I'd be perfectly happy to be told to 'hold for seven minutes due to call volume' if it was Moira at the other end.

Long live Moira.

I've just returned from the fabulous Jolyons Hotel - opposite the Opera House in Cardiff Bay. It's a trendy-but-cosy boutique hotel, with a cool bar, log fires, only six rooms and very friendly staff. And my room was a mere £89 for B&B. You get a caffetiere in your room with real filter coffee. And the Dr Who actors stay there too, which makes it even better.

Cardiff Opera House

my room

People used to call me 'son' or 'young man' or 'pet' (in the north). Then they started calling me 'mate' in the street, 'sir' in the posher shops.

I was once even addressed as 'geezer' by a tattooed Cockney in Gran Canaria.

But today, a young man called me 'governor'. Governor? What next? Old boy? Old stick? Grandad?

The Endless Senseless Interactive Book aims to become the longest webpage ever. The idea is that you go to the page and just write anything you want to, without thinking about it too much. It's essentially a collective piece of automatic writing.

I haven't written anything yet, but intend to, perhaps after a few glasses of wine.

I'm also tempted to place Bollinger on my keyboard to see what happens.

In fact, I'm going to do so now.

cccccc```v#

That's what she wrote. I'm now going to put it into the Endless Senseless Interactive Book. This is very exciting.

I've just entered Boll's great literary work. Go to the Endless Senseless Interactive Book now and put 'bollinger' in your 'find' thingy.

I went ice-skating at Somerset House yesterday with my godson Ben and his family.

I spent most of the hour clinging for dear life to the edge, occasionally teetering a few inches out and flailing around randomly, as hordes of smug toddlers sped past.

I did get better though, and eventually managed one whole width of the rink without holding onto anything.

Jade Goody

Hertford evicted Jade a few months ago by not taking to her ghastly beauty salon off Fore Street. And now the entire UK has declared Goody a baddy.

Endemol and Channel 4's motivation in broadcasting her racist bullying was questionable. And it's obviously not good at all that Shilpa suffered.

But surely the outcome of the drama wasn't all bad. Over 85% of viewers voted Jade out, emphatically saying no to racism and bullying. Jade and her sidekicks came across as nasty, pathetic and ignorant. BB's Ugly Sisters. Whereas Shilpa came across as intelligent, elegant, dignified, philosophical, cultured and eloquent. And it gave us all a useful reminder not to assume that we live in a cosy post-racist UK.

Hello. I'm back from Wales. I stayed in a place called the Future Inn in Cardiff Bay, where they film Dr Who. John Barrowman lives round the corner. It was a nice hotel, for that sort of hotel, but the technology left me sore afraid.

When I arrived, I had a peep at the bathroom (as you do) and discovered it was impressively hi-tech with a thermostatic bath, but no loo.

I was literally apoplectic. Then I discovered the loo, hidden behind the door.

I then switched on the flat-screen TV, which was a PC with internet access as well. It was also probably a Corby Trouser Press and Teasmaid. 'Good evening Mrs Medha Kamal' said the caption on the screen. I've since googled Mrs Kamal and she doesn't exist. Who is she? Is she something to do with Torchwood?

Then I decided to have a bath. But I set the thermostat wrongly, believing it to be a tap, and then I couldn't work the plug. By bedtime ('Canadian Sized Bed' - two double beds - why?) I felt very, very old.

Is it like this all the time when you're 90?

It's frosty this morning. What a relief. This is the correct weather for England.

At goodgifts, you can buy comfort cats for old people, chilli hedges to stop elephants squashing villages, and ... protection services for penguins. You can also buy an entire farm for someone in Rwanda for £25,000 if you're feeling very rich.

My favourite gift is a chicken bank. Apparently chickens are accepted as currency in some parts of the world, where doctors accept 'payment by fowl'.

My parents got me a herd of goats in Bolivia last year. I often wonder how they're doing and what their names are.

So - Donald Rumsfeld is Bush's latest casualty. I must admit I'll miss Donald's Wittgensteinian podium pronouncements to the press. Here are some of my favourites (which filled me with shock and awe):

'I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.'

'I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said.'

'There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know.'

Hola. I'm back from Spain, where we were celebrating Mum's birthday.

I still can't believe Mum's 80. She plays golf several times a week, goes swimming, never fails to beat me at Scrabble and completes most of her Sudokus in about three seconds. And she's constantly off on jaunts to far-flung places like Russia and Estonia.

It was a very relaxing week. Temperatures averaged at about 26° on the coast - a bit hotter inland. We visited the Alhambra in Granada, went yacht-shopping, paddled in search of pebbles for one of Mum's artistic fridge-magnet creations, did 57 crosswords and ate preposterous amounts of food.

I also read the excellent Driving Over Lemons which is all about Andalucia.

Me in the Mediterranean

Mum and Dad

My room overlooked the sea, which was pretty rough when we arrived.

Great literary works in a bookshop in Granada

I'm frantically swotting up on my dodgy broken Spanish this weekend, as I'm off to Andalucia next week to celebrate Mum's 80th.

I'm also trying to think up a surprise of some sort, inspired by Matthew Parris's mum's 80th party. That also, by coincidence, took place in Spain.

Mrs Parris used to be an actress and loves Shakespeare. So they arranged for a bunch of actors to do a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream, with his mother playing Titania.

"I need elevation, up in the branches," she said. So her Spanish son-in-law (a builder) fetched his JCB, filled the scoop with flowers, put her in it and lifted her into the air as she asked: "What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?"

I love that story. But I'm not sure Mum would be terribly happy about performing Shakespeare in a JCB scoop. I have a feeling she'd prefer a nice cake and a cup of tea.

As you may know, I was mystified by the picture on my first ever postcard from Siberia. I was pretty sure it was a scene from a gay bar in Omsk or somewhere. But no. Amina has kindly emailed the following explanation -

A rough translation says something like: Throw away your moneybox - get a bankbook! It rhymes in Russian and reads phonetically: Bros Koobeeshkoo! Zavyedee Sbyerkneezhkoo!

Spasibo Amina!

I've just received a postcard from Siberia, from my friend Aric who's gone there on holiday. I'm not sure what the picture represents but I suspect it may be the cover of the Omsk edition of Gay Times.

Hi. I'm now back from the south coast of Gran Canaria. It was muy bien. The villa was on the edge of a mini-desert of sand dunes and had a resident cat called Pedro. It also had air con thankfully, as it was 44° degrees when we arrived and didn't make it below 25.

Photo I took the of the dunes near the villa

Me and my Pedro

Pedro on the patio

Me

Faro (lighthouse) Maspalomas

My trendy beach towel

Dressed for dinner

I'm off to a villa in the Canary Islands for a few weeks. Ciao. Have fun. See you when I get back.

I phoned a 'business support centre' yesterday. In case you've not encountered these abominations, business support centres are offices full of very thick people, usually in the north, who are paid vast sums to delay payments from large organisations to smaller ones (such as my company).

For several months, I've been badgering a large organisation about invoice 025, zero two five, which kept going missing.

After yet another bewildering conversation with a confused youth who denied my entire existence, I suggested he could find me by looking up a previous invoice which had been miraculously paid. It was 018, zero one eight.

"Sorry. We have no record of that. It can't have been paid."

At that point, I had a flash of inspiration. "Why not try inputting '018' without the leading zero?"

He inputted '18' and '25' without zeros, and both invoices showed up.

'Isn't that preposterous?' I fulminated.

'No,' he replied. 'Our system always gets rid of the leading zero.'

I do not, I repeat, NOT have jet lag. I may have been exhausted, grumpy and disorientated for three days. I may have accidentally set fire to a tea-towel last night, causing a terrible kerfuffle over my stainless steel hobs. But I do not have jet lag. I never, I repeat NEVER get it.

My condition is, in fact, delayed-onset air rage, caused, I suspect, by turbulence over the Mouths of the Irrawaddy.

So just shut up and go away.

Here's an interesting story I heard in Thailand.

The 2004 tsunami killed hundreds of thousands, but spared the Moken tribe in the south. There are about 3000 Moken, known as 'sea gypsies', living on the Andaman coast, in huts and wooden houseboats. But only one of them was killed by the wave. The rest managed to head inland before disaster struck.

The Moken are an ancient tribe who worship their ancestors and local spirits, and are very much in touch with nature and the sea. The theory is that they predicted the tsunami by observing unusual patterns in waves, and crabs and lobsters behaving oddly. An elderly shaman also claimed his ancestors warned him of danger a few hours beforehand.

Anthropogist Jacques Ivanoff has lived with them and wasn't surprised at their escape. "They read nature's signals: the silence, the receding of the water, the colour of the sea," he said. "They have collective memory of the multiple rolls of a tsunami. They knew the second wave was the killer, so they had time to escape before it came."

The Thai authorities are now consulting the Moken to help with their tsunami prediction plans.

But they've not been entirely happy with offers of money. Apparently, that makes the spirits of ther ancestors angry. According to their creation myth, they're meant to be poor and to remain outsiders.

Why am I always preceded at the checkout by a halfwit who leaves one handle of his wire basket across the middle, so I have to move the handle aside before I can put my basket inside it? I say 'his' because it's usually a man.

Why do some people wait till the very last minute to get their money out, and count it penny by penny for about a month?

And why do the till assistants (if they deign to speak) always say: 'That'll be 15.99 then.'

'Then'??? Why 'then'????? The 'then' is utterly pointless. It makes me unspeakably angry.

Hello. I'm back.

I'm heading home today. Will I be allowed hand luggage? Will they frisk my straw hat? Is England still there or has it been bombed to oblivion by teenagers from High Wycombe?

It's the evening of Mothers' Day today here in Thailand - falling on August 12th because it's the Queen's birthday. She's 74.

There are huge photos of her all over Bangkok, and most Thai people are wearing blue or gold polo shirts in her honour.

We had dinner al fresco tonight, on the top deck of a huge river boat. After cruising up the Chao Phraya river, we moored outside the illuminated Royal Palace. There was a firework display in honour of queen Sikirit and all the diners on the boat stood up, faced the palace, lit candles and sang traditional Thai songs.

Everyone seemed genuinely, innocently excited about the Queen. There was absolutely none of the cynicism which seems obligatory in the UK. I found myself wondering whether they'd been somehow culturally brainwashed, but I guess we're all culturally brainwashed in our own way.

I wandered round Bangkok's oldest Buddhist temple today. Wat Po was founded in the 17th century and has over a thousand images of the Buddha, including the golden statue below, which is bigger than my house.

I seem to have caused a great stir by including a photo of myself in a suit. Well - it's real and not photoshopped onto me, as has been suggested by various stunned friends.

Hello again from Thailand. We went past the King's palace tonight and the guards let us down the drive and over the moat to look at the lights.

My morning lift

In the studio

King Bhumibol and Tong Daeng

Hello again from Thailand. King Bhumibol is celebrating 60 years on the throne this year, so everyone's wearing yellow polo shirts and wristbands in his honour. His dog Tong Daeng is a celebrity - a sort of Thai Beckham. He has his own brand of t-shirt and a best-selling biography. The King adopted Tong Daeng when he was a stray. He's mad about animals and recently set up a special swimming pool for disabled dogs.

Bangkok Street Dogs

View from my hotel room

Hello. I'm in Bangkok for a week, giving television training to Thai ambassadors whose names I can't pronounce. Today's group included Mrs Prasattongosoth, Miss Supanimitwisetkul and Mrs Pooppornanake.

Try the test

I did. And I was Iron Man. I've no i