My Monday morning blues

I should be at my 8am Monday pilates class right now, I love starting the week with a thorough head to toe stretch, only my usually very reliable Honda won’t start. So I have borrowed my husband’s car at great inconvenience to him as he has a long commute, while he has borrowed his father’s car. Luckily, mine brought me home safely from Norfolk last night where I had spent the...
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£4 well spent

I have just renewed my annual subscription for The Cambridge Rambling Club. And I asked myself, could I have spent £4 any better? The club could easily add a nought on the end and members would still pay up. But for just £4 a year, you get the chance to join a jolly band of enthusiastic walkers who provide a varied programme to appeal to walkers of all levels, including the super fit who can...
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Prostitution and the World Cup

South African MP George Lekgetho has called for prostitution to be legalised during the football World Cup to be held there in 2010. He believes it would help cut incidences of rape and would bring in taxes to fight poverty. But my CHASTE colleague Carol Freeman suggests a different perspective and argues why this is not the answer: Last week, George Lekgetho, when arguing for the legalisation...
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Can Labour run an effective social media campaign?

I recently contributed an article on political blogging to Richard Bailey for the next publication of Behind the Spin. I naturally mentioned how Labour lagged behind Conservative bloggers, who have fire in their bellies and have dominated the political blogging scene, as any opposition party hungry for success would. Since then, I have been informed of LabourHome’s intention to use its blog...
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My son won’t speak to me

My son David isn’t speaking to me. You couldn’t meet a more easy going and placid 17-year-old. But suddenly, with L plates on the car, he has become a different person. The power under the car bonnet has clearly gone to his head. He regards me as simply a “mum”. The fact that I am an Advanced Motorist counts for nothing. He ignores everything I say when he is behind the...
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The life of autistic adults

I always remember a newspaper editor telling me that stories about disabled people or with a disorder like autism did not sell papers, he used to shun them. He might have felt differently if someone he knew or loved had a disability. Getting positive media coverage is a huge challenge for this minority group. This is Casdok’s poignant story about life with her autistic son Christopher,...
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Phone tapping evidence could help convict Britain’s terrorists

The sooner phone tapping evidence is permitted in our courts to help secure convictions of terrorists the better. How can anyone argue against presenting evidence to show we are serious about locking them up? The safety and security of our citizens should be the first objective of any government. Yet Britain is one of few countries in the world to ban the use of evidence from intercepted phone...
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Major computer breakdown

I’m afraid I have had a mega major breakdown with my new silver Dell desktop, I cannot log on or even access safemode. A black screen with an ominous sounding message: “NTLDR is missing*. is alll that appears, there is no Windows Vista logo even. I wonder if I have been hacked after last month losing £840 from my online bank account, whether there is a connection. Or is it just a...
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How can you find your soul mate?

With The Times today asking: “Where have all the men gone?”, I asked Liza Moore, who runs an introductions agency in Cambridge, Tempting Fate, (a former PR client), to describe today’s dating scene, what men and women are looking for, and how they can find their soul mate. This is what she said – and some of her members have walked up the aisle – l hope it helps in...
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What are the top most useless inventions?

You probably know of a perfectly infuriating device you can suggest as the most useless invention which you bought or been given over the last 12 months for the first ever Landfill Prize. Nominations already include an automatic cucumber peelers, hi-spec plug-in air fresheners and a £150 electric toothbrush, as well as microwavable baked beans and a cosmetic body polisher John Nash in...
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