Very frustrated at the moment. The team I'm working with really aren't committed to it at all. In fact, it usually seems that work is something they use to fill a dull moment when they haven't got the match to talk about. Or their lottery syndicate. Or what's happening on Coronation Street. You get the idea. I want to pick them up and shake them. They're so damn complacent that everything is someone else's fault. Grrrrrr.

Saxophone lesson at school for Jessica today. She's also singing in the chorus in the school pantomime this evening. She got a bit worried last night because it seems the teacher running the show has put a bit of pressure on them to get it right - which had Jessica in a bit of a blather.

Alex rumbles on, school is still going OK - he may be in the lowest set for Literacy and Numeracy, but he's there. And his reading has improved no end since the summer.

I'm reading a single volume abridgement of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" at the moment, mostly on the bus on the way into work. It's interesting how the conclusions he draws are often still the 'canonical' ones regarding any given period.

I'm also trying to wean myself off a growing addiction to Caffe Nero Lattes, usually to drink on the bus on the way home.

Here we are at the run down towards Christmas. I can't tell you how much I dislike this time of year. It's dark in the morning, it's dark in the evening. You feel constantly tired and there's the stress of trying to prepare for Christmas.

We're not doing big presents for the kids this year - although my family have given me quite a bit of money, and we are therefore thinking about getting a Wii afterwards. No chance of getting one beforehand, and both kids enjoy their electronic games. It's a lot of money, but we know they'll get their money's worth out of it. The alternative is a holiday somewhere, or perhaps membership of Chester Zoo. I'll let you know what we decide.

Work is work. I just hate getting up when it's dark and then going home when it's dark. Still there is light on the horizon as I may shortly be able to hand over my staff to someone else and just be a planning manager - which I think is probably more up my street although it only forms part of my role at the moment.

Time for another update. Where are we up to?

Well, Jessica is now in Year 5, and finding it all quite hard work. Mind you, that might be at least partly because she finally seems to have thrown herself into the activities available at school. So she is now doing rugby, gardening club, computer club. She's been shouted at for giggling in class and is finding the homework a bit of a struggle. History at the moment is the Victorians, and she's seemingly interested for the first time. So we took her to the Walker Art Gallery at the weekend to see some Victorian buildings and art.

Other than that, she's into a kid's social networking site called club penguin, along with one of her friends. This is helped by having a computer in her own room now, which allows her to play without getting in the way of everyone else.

So the new term has been difficult for Jessica. We're moving back to 5p's for good behaviour (Jessica's version of a star chart) and we'll see how we go.

Meanwhile Alex has started at Junior school. Despite all our concerns, it's gone really well. In fact, he's just been given the Headteacher's Award (the top award the school gives out each week).

Day 4 of jury service. I was picked for a jury yesterday, which we completed within the day. It was a very short trial, although obviously I'm not going to go into any more detail.

I'm waiting now in the assembly area - basically a holding area for jurors waiting to be chosen for a trial, or waiting for their trial to start. As someone mentioned the other day, it's a bit like sitting in a airport lounge waiting for a delayed flight.

The trial itself was remarkably like what is usually shown on television. It particularly put me in mind of the court scenes shown in 'Judge John Deed' - the judge occasionally directing the lawyers, and asking questions of the witnesses when he wanted to; the harsh cross-examination of the defendant by the prosecution lawyer. The bit that was truly novel was that not normally portrayed in such dramas - discussion in the jury room, which clearly I can't go into any further. Suffice to say that I really felt the responsibility of making what was clearly going to be a life changing decision for the defendant. I was a little shocked by how some didn't seem to feel that responsbility. In particular people just desperate for their next cigarette as there was no smoking in the deliberation room. It was also a surprise (although I don't suppose it should have been) to find ourselves locked in with bailiffs standing at the door.

Still, now I'm sat in the assembly area again waiting to see whether I'll be picked for another trial, and it'll start all over again.

My summer holiday is now over, and I've just started my first week of jury service. Now, obviously I'm going to have to be a little careful about what I blog about jury service. So I'll skip over that for the time being and do the summer holiday first.

The holiday was a week away in a cottage half way between Abergavenny and Monmouth. Despite all the rain, we managed glorious sunshine for 3 days, and modestly reasonable weather for the remainder. I'll have to try and work out how to add the coordinates for Google Earth (which is cool - you should try it!) so you can see for yourself. 3 major walks (including our first 'real' hill walking) and 2 smaller ones, plus pony trekking in the Black Mountains.

The list of places we visited is quite long - Puzzlewood, the Blorenge, the sculpture trail in the Forest of Dean, White Castle (which was within walking distance of the cottage), Offa's Dyke Path. We saw a canal lock in operation, got lost up a hill, visited South Wales mining country at Blaenavon (the big pit), and two steam railways. All managed without major rows. It was a fantastic time, and has left us with the urge to go back to this area next year because there was so much we didn't do. Photos will be available next time you visit in the obligatory Harrison family scrap book.

As for jury service. Well so far it mostly involves hanging around in a slightly shabby, crowded, 70's style cafeteria waiting for your name to be called. Nothing controversial to write home about at all.

Upgrading Xorg to 7.2 on FreeBSD 6.2.

I've just successfully followed the instructions in /usr/ports/UPDATING to upgrade my Xorg 6.9 installation to the new modular 7.2 on my main desktop machine (currently running 6.2-RELEASE-p5).

The build went exactly according to the instructions in UPDATING - it just took a looooong time. After the build however I had some problems running the merge script. It barfed on a number of files in /usr/X11R6/ (mostly to do with either gconf or xdm). I moved them to a safe location and re-ran the script which then completed successfully. One of the moved files was Xsetup_0, which removed my xdm configuration. Rather than try to recreate this, I switched to Slim - another login manager available in ports. Prettifies things up a bit, allowing me to run a rather nifty picture of Jupiter from the Nasa site at the login screen, together with anti-aliased fonts.

I also successfully ran the update on my Dell laptop. I initially couldn't get slim working here, it used the wrong resolution. This was because the slim rc script was running before the crontab entry which called 915resolution to hack the video BIOS to allow a resolution of 1280x800

Whilst I'm on the subject of FreeBSD, I've also managed to get HAL working under Xfce 4.4 and Thunar after ignoring it for a long time. Followed some instructions I find on the Thunar documentation pages. In simple terms you need:
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
polkitd_enable="YES"
in rc.conf.
Make sure that Thunar was built with HAL support, and then:
cd /usr/ports/sysutils/thunar-volman && make install clean.

From Thunar you can then fiddle with the settings through Edit->Preferences.

So I now have Thunar auto-mounting my removable media on insertion. Now I need to look at what I can do with my ipod. Ideally I want it to automount and run gtkpod, then on closing gtkpod unmount and use camcontrol to eject it so that I get the "safe to disconnect" message. I think I may be able to do this with sudo and a little bit of scripting. I'll post back when I get it working.

So Blair has finally gone, and Gordon Brown will be his replacement. What to think about this?

Blair has clearly pursued some policies which would have fitted comfortably into Thatcher's agenda, and which I could never have supported. The approach to education is desperately flawed (and aimed at the Daily Mail readers). The NHS has been improved but risks going backwards now. The insanely reactionary criminal justice policies of the last few years (whatever happened to "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"?).

The Iraq war will also forever hang around his neck, no matter what George Bush says in his support. Let's be plain. He lied to the public and to parliament in order to take us into a war without legal sanction, that he personally believed justified. So much for an ethical foreign policy. The death toll since (and I'm thinking Iraqi civilians, not western military personnel) has been such that if he and Bush are not prosecuted for war crimes on leaving office it will make a mockery of having a permanent war crimes tribunal. This is 'justice' determined by the powerful, not by any objective yardstick.

I think his original statement after the local elections, clearly intended to secure his legacy, that he had always done what he thought was right and followed his conscience is fundamentally flawed. I am not convinced that the duty of a leader in a democratic country is to follow what he individually believes to be right, but rather to build consensus and represent.

When I came to reflect on this with Deb, my verdict was that - knowing what I know now - would I vote for Blair again in 1997? Yes. Would I vote for him again in 2001? Probably. Would I have voted for him in 2005? No (and I didn't in reality in 2005 either).

And Gordon is already sounding like an interesting prospect. Most of his statements so far boil down to 'motherhood and apple pie'. Who doesn't want to improve education and the NHS? The devil is in how you go about achieving 'improvement'. I certainly didn't sign up for the way this government has approached education (Jessica has just gone through her year 4 SATS, being hothoused for them by her school who seem purely interested in maintaining their reputation. She got really stressed and upset. She's 8 for heaven's sake! Why is she even sitting tests?).

Final thought. I must say that the grand parade of Blair around the world during his final 6 weeks is really starting to annoy me. It seems to be an exercise in how many world leaders we can get to stand next to Blair and say how wonderful he is. Great for his ego, but I'm not sure that he should have the opportunity to parade his ego in front of us. It seems clear that he was determined not to go in the manner of Thatcher (ie. Ignominiously). Instead we are all expected to fete him out. To pick a phrase I last used 4 years ago "not in my name".

Another day at work. Struggling again to put some kind of EFQM process into action. There are 2 parts to my job. I have a small team to manage, and I have some considerative work looking at budgets. Both are going slowly. The team are very self-contained. Their previous HEO was very hands-off, letting them do what they wanted. I want to be much more involved, and 3 weeks in I'm starting to see the beginnings of friction over this. I've been doing 1-2-1's with them and getting some feedback that they find me a bit intrusive. On the budget side I'm getting busier, but it all still feels a bit like nugatory work, shuffling numbers around for my boss. I'm sticking with it. I went out with some friends from my old job last week, and as they pointed out it's often the case that after promotion the job feels less intense than the work you went through to get the promotion. My ex-Grade 7 was very complimentary about the length of time I'd been working out of grade.

On to the really sad news. Yesterday Rambo the hamster finally died. He was about 3 (which I understand is a good age for a hamster) and had not been well for a while. The day before when we cleaned him out, he was very dopey and tottered around a bit unsteadily without really opening his eyes. Put him back into bed and he just kind of flopped down without moving. He died sometime within the following 24 hours. Alex burst into tears. Jessica was initially fine, then asked when we could get a new on, then burst into tears. She's currently fluctuating between 'can I have a gerbil this time' to being very tearful. He's now safely buried in the back garden, and Deb and I are trying to persuade them that they don't really want another one...

Tired today. Alex decided to get up at 6:15 and go downstairs to watched his recorded Thomas the Tank Engine shows (recorded on our Freeview hard disk recorder from Channel 5). This seems to be code for "I've decided that today is not a school day". The end result was a row as he refused to get dressed - ending up with him biting Deb.

Didn't help that I then sniped at Deb for suggesting that he might get dressed downstairs. Sometimes I can react to changing a routine just as badly as Alex.

So I left for work with him still calming down. I hope Deb managed to get him off to school without too much difficulty.

I've not managed to post this as yet, so it's still currently sitting on my Palm. It was Tuesday when Alex was particularly difficult, and now it's Friday.

Deb's new ipod has now arrived. It's a green new generation 4 gig Nano. She was persuaded after playing around with mine for a bit. We have both begun feeling a bit deprived of music recently. Where we both used to listen to CD's or the radio regularly, the house is usually now silent as Alex won't tolerate music playing in the background.

Right, well blogging with my Palm is working again (I'm writing this in work now!). I now have a choice of blogging applications - Plogit which I've been using for a while, and Vagablog (which was recommended by Blogger's help site). For both, to make them work, I just had to change the server they accessed from www.blogger.com to www2.blogger.com. Strangely enough that made things 'just work'. So now I have a choice of apps for blogging from my Palm.

Been getting involved in another computer game. This one's called OpenTTD and is clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. It's a strategy game where you have to build a transport empire. Alex loves it because you can build train and road networks delivering passengers and freight. He thinks it's marvellous. Problem is, it's been taking quite a while to play, and Alex (and me if I'm honest) have been getting a bit obsessed with it. I think it's narking Deb off (understandably). I've got it working on Ubuntu Linux with sound, and FreeBSD without sound (I think it's a problem with playing midi files, but to be honest I'm not that bothered).

Not much done over the weekend. Removed most of a small Eucalyptus tree in the garden which was getting a bit over sized - and found that it has probably damaged the garden wall to the point where it's only the ivy which is holding it up. Ordered a new ipod for Deb, she's been very impressed with my 4gig 2nd generation Nano, so I'm treating her to one to fill with all her 80's rubbish :-). Cooked a nice fish noodle soup on Saturday from the Wagamama cookbook (cod - supposed to be 'sea bass' - marinated in mirin, fish sauce, and soy).

I'm pondering getting more involved in a local autism charity, Merseyside Autistic Children's Society or MACS which, despite the name, is largely Wirral based. Thinking I could some electronic communications stuff with them - run maybe a website and email newsletter etc. This could give reality to my long dormant 'website project'.

And I don't have any particular thougts on the Virginia Tech shootings - other than being amazed that a US pundit thought the problem was that the students hadn't been armed - and that if they had been the problem could have been averted (ie. They would have shot the killer before he killed anyone). To quote a film "Thank you for that fascinating insight into our cultural differences".

Very interesting episode of House the other night. This is a programme Deb and I like quite a bit - Hugh Laurie draws a magnificent character, full of flaws and complexity.

Last night's episode revolved around a child with autism who (it evenually turned out) had acquired a parasite which caused all sorts of symptoms, but very hard to diagnose because they couldn't communicate with the child.

To cut a long story short, it was really encouraging to see a portrayal of life with autism on mainstream tv - without the 'Rain Man' style spin (when I tell people about Alex, I still regularly get asked 'what does he do?). It was just an ordinary life for people coping with autism - rigid schedules, PECS, worry, frustration (one particular scene involved the parents pinning the screaming child down so some tests could be done, which rang a few bells). The unrealistic sudden willingness of the child to attempt to communicate with House only spoiled it a little bit.

Another interesting attempt was the effort to try and portray the world through the eyes of the child - how the world is perceived, with all the over stimulation making it impossible to focus on what someone is asking you to focus on.

All in all, a great effort. Not perfect maybe, but still good to see a (reasonably) realistic portrayal of life with autism.

Grrr...narked off now, because the change to Blogger's API has prevented my old Palm application for blogging from working. I'll have to search around to find one that will work with the new API now...

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More news in work. My role is becoming a little clearer. It will revolve around finance and budgets. So I will have staff responsible for managing various finance related tasks - mostly to do with making payments. I'll hold responsibility for monitoring the budget, and forecasting against staffing. I'd rather have had the other side of my team - which is more to do with monitoring work performance - but I'm sure I can make a go of it. Watch this space. I'm not unhappy, as it allows me to keep my hand in at staff management, whilst also having some analysis work to do. I'll also still be within spitting distance of the local project staff, so we shall see what happens.

Planning a trip to Derby for Easter. Not sure entirely what's there, but hoping we might make it into the Peak District for some walking - assuming the weather's reasonable.

The problem we've been having with the landline has now finally been fixed by BT - so it's possible to call us and make yourself understood without being deafened by the noise on the line. It doesn't knock the broadband connection out either. It's only taken about 4 months to get it sorted, but at least it's done now.

Well, I think that's about it for now. Judo this evening for Jessica - she passed her grading las weekend and is now an Orange belt, so tonight will be her first chance to go wearing her new colour. Alex will probably go shopping with Deb, and I get to cook the tea!

NASA - Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn





Good lord! This is, to say the least, fairly gobsmacking. Take a look, and see what you think...

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So it's been a while since my last entry. I've had some problems with my blogging software since blogger changed their API. The software on my Palm continued to work, but neither Performancing nor Deepest Sender (they're addons for the Firefox web browser) would work. Luckily, Performancing has been reinvented as Scriptfire, so I back in business.

The big news is that I started my new job on Monday, on promotion. It's based in central Liverpool, and therefore involves a little more travelling - although it's basically just a couple of extra stops on the bus. It's a completely different organisation, so I've spent the first few days just trying to learn a little about what they do and how they're set up.

I'd expected the job to include bits of project and implementation work, but I've spoken to my new boss now. From what she says, it's going to be more planning and forecasting. That's a bit of a disappointment - especially since it seems I've basically taken on the job she's just left, and she seems to be a little protective of what she left behind. This could make things interesting later. I guess we just need to get to know each other.

It's also taking a little while for me to find out exactly what I'm responsible for. Maybe it's me, I'm finding it difficult to settle in and find out what I'm actually responsible for. At the moment, I feel a little bored and listless. I want to be proactive and start taking things on, but I don't feel like I'm in a position to.

Oh well, I'm sure things will get better. And at least if the job isn't going so well, then it isn't going well on HEO money etc..

Well that's all a bit gloomy I'm afraid. Must make sure I post again soon when I'm sure things will be looking up.

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | That 2p off income tax is a one-day wonder that comes at a high price



Crikey, this just about sums up my feelings about the budget. I was amazed to read this (sitting in Starbucks in Liverpool before going to work - but that's another story), but it's a hell of a piece of political analysis.

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Amazon.co.uk: The Making of the English Working Class: Books: E.P. Thompson

Current reading matter. I know it's a classic text for students, but I saw it in the local library and fancied reading something different. It's very interesting stuff. Though provoking, and certainly not dogmatically left wing - although left wing for all that. I'm planning to move onto some Hobsbawm probably after this.

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Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | People like us:

Another interesting article from today's Guardian. This one touches themes  from the book I'm reading  (Making of the English Working Class, E P Thompson) about life before the Industrial Revolution. The illusion of constant progress is something that belongs to the world of the capitalist - and it is indeed an illusion. To paraphrase Marx, the freedom offered by capitalism is for many simply the freedom to starve.

Correction: this could become a crash after all | | Guardian Unlimited Business:

Crumbs, Larry Elliot hits the spot again. The comparison of the challenge to US hegemony posed by Iraq not to Vietnam, but to Britain and South Africa around 1900 is very challenging - based very properly (I say this as a Marxist) on the basis that political power is based firmly in economic power. Hmm...

I'm trying to get back into the habit of adding entries to my blog. I hadn't added any for a while, but then was inspired by some autism info I found on the web last week. I need to add some more routine stuff. So, where are we up to?

Back to school for the kids today after February half term. Neither of them particularly keen to go. Had to promise some fun stuff when I get home to get them going - playing Gamecube with Jessica, and Microsoft Train Simulator with Alex. That'll keep me busy!

Jessica travelled with me to visit Granny and Grandad at the weekend. A much easier journey without Alex in the back. Jessica was very well behaved throughout, and really enjoyed the visit. It was a bit of a push to do it all in a weekend though - 3 hours there on Saturday and 3 hours back on Sunday.

Alex is enjoying the new train set we built for him for his birthday. It now runs on a shelf built all the way around his bedroom - with a bridge acros the doorway. His contribution to the subject of India, which they study in Year 2, will be some stuff on transport, inspired I suspect by the fact that he knows there are still a few steam trains there (such as the Darjeeling railway).

He's gone very 'stimmy' at the moment. Lots of flapping, shouting, and running around. We're not sure what it's about, but it seems to be a legacy of coming off Strattera. He doesn't seem to be particularly stressed out. It can really wind you up though when he's perpetually running around the room. Might have to ask the paediatrician about it at our next appointment (although I doubt that'll do any good...).

Jessica is progressing with her judo - although she hasn't been for a few weeks as she wasn't well before half term, and then there was no session at half term itself. She's very into Mario Kart at the moment. She also managed to read an omnibus of Horrid Henry in a weekend - they're some of her favourite stories.

I'm going to sign off now, but will add some more to the blog as soon as I get the chance.

Time for me to add some more detail on our experiences with using Atomoxetine (marketed as Strattera) as a drug therapy for children with ADHD and Autism (trying to make this as easy to find as possible for other parents in the same boat).

We started Alex on a daily 10mg dose of Strattera just after Christmas this year. We were expecting it to take a little while to kick - as I understand it, Strattera is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor or SSRI (and therefore related to Prozac). This means that it would take 4 weeks plus to get into his system.

We started him taking it in the evening, because there was a possibility it would make him drowsy. We didn't want this affecting him in school, and we hoped it might allow us to take him off his nightly dose of melatonin to get him to sleep. This didn't work at all, he was no drowsier than normal. We therefore switched to giving him the capsule in the morning.

The capsule itself was easy enough for him to take. Alex is used to taking EyeQ Omega 3, and Strattera is a little smaller. So no problems there.

OK, onto what happened. The information sheet mentioned that there may be side effects - including mood swings and irritability. We began to notice a change in Alex's behaviour within probably about a week of starting him on the new medication. Over the course of the following weeks he became more and more touchy. The slightest thing out of place would make him shout and stamp his feet - much more so than previously. When this happened his whole body would tense - you could see the muscles in his neck straining, his face going red.

In school, his one to one support, teachers, and classmates noticed that he had a very short temper. There were a couple of occasions when he hit other pupils, which he's never done before. They commented that he hadn't been this angry and unsettled since Reception 2 years earlier.

Needless to say, after about 4 or 5 weeks on this medication we stopped using it. We ascribe the changes in Alex's behaviour to the side effects of Strattera. At our last meeting with his school, his one to one commented that within a couple of weeks he began to return to normal.

So the outcome of our experiences with Strattera? It didn't work for us. In fact it made things worse. That's not to say it might not work for you, but watch for those side effects and be aware it will take 2-3 months to get through if it goes wrong.

Autism Research Centre - Current Research:

Getting interested all of a sudden in research into autism. Thinking about whether we can get involved as a volunteer in research in this country. Will let you know how we get on.

OK, second thoughts about the fatty acids story. How similar is this to the Omega 3 supplement that he's been taking for 2 years now? What kind of difference can it really make?

Everyone who's claimed so far to have found the 'cause' of autism has been dead wrong.

I've emailed the author and asked her to put me in touch with the University to see if we can get some more info.

Me and probably 2 million other parents of children with autism...

NJ.com's Printer-Friendly Page:

Is this a possible cure for autism? Both Deb and I nearly fell off our chairs when we read this. All we need now is to find a way of doing this now, in this country. Answers on a post card. This is the first time I have seen anything that suggests a believable underlying cause holding out the possibility of an eventual cure - or even just to understand it better.

If your child has autism, go and ask your doctor about it! Let's start a campaign to get some research going in this country!

We'll keep you posted.

BBC NEWS | UK | Bird flu farm resumes production



Crumbs. Feels a little close for this to restart now. Can't see it exactly building confidence in the official process being followed.

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Well a fair bit is going on here at the moment. The big news first. Jessica received a letter from Blue Peter. They've awarded her a Blue Peter Badge!!! This was for a model of a Tudor house she built with Deb (they were doing Tudors at school before Christmas). We emailed some pictures to Blue Peter ages ago (October?) and had given up on them. Then out of the blue a letter arrived for Jessica on Saturday with a badge. She's over the moon about it.

News number 2. I've spent most of last week off work having pulled my back. Lots of pain and most of the week spent lying flat out on the sofa. I'm still not quite sorted, but I'll have to go to work on Monday regardless - I can't afford to have any more time off.

News number 3. The storms the week before last seemed to hit the area quite badly. Quite a few houses lost tiles. Including us. To be honest, it wasn't that dramatic. We lost of load of mortar from the front gable end but no actual tiles. On the side a tile that was already a little loose came fully out. And one tile on the ridge line looked distinctly iffy, but didn't actually come away. Anyway, 'phoned the insurance company and they'll cover the cost but we had to arrange for the work to be done. After much asking around for a firm with a good reputation (and after having number turn us down because they were too busy) we got a quote - and then they turned up suddenly on Saturday. They went straight up the roof and pulled the first three ridge tiles off. Must have been loose anyway... Still, it's all sorted now.

News number 4. I've mentioned before that we were trying Alex on a new drug called Strattera. Well it's been a complete disaster. I'll make a separate post about this to make it easier for any other parents out there to find our experience. Needless to say he's now off the drug but it's knocked him off target a little in school.

So plenty going on in the Harrison household.

Oh, and Jessica and me finished Lego Star Wars. Very cool.

HillaryClinton.com - Welcome



So Hillary's in, is she? Hmm...I always thought she was the more impressive politician than Bill. I worry though that she will be prey to her past in a presidential race - and also that she doesn't have the ability to empathise with the public in the same way as the great communicator Bill. Still, she'd probably get my vote - despite her support for the war in Iraq. I remember Clinton getting elected in 1992 partly on the basis that Hillary would bring a considerable intellect to the job of First Lady - and not just be someone who stayed home and "baked cookies". I also remember feeling disappointed at the treatment she got from the Republicans who subsequently forced her to withdraw from the prominent political role she seemed to be hoping for. I think she's got a good chance of the nomination - but there may well be Republicans out there who think she's their best chance of a surprise win in the 2008 contest.

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ActionAid International : fighting poverty together :



Forgot to mention a while ago that we now sponsor a child. This was a decision we made over Christmas - particularly after watching a number of Blue Peter shows featuring AIDS orphans in Malawi. I'll post all the details another time, but she lives in Tanzania. Reading the blurb on the Action Aid website, it covers a lot of the points that normally concern me about this kind of thing. In particular, the money from sponsorship is used to fund sustainable projects within the community which are then handed over to local people to manage. It also talks about lobbying locally and nationally for the community's rights and interests. Something I feel I can be a little more committed to than my usual stance to charity work of this nature (ie. time to lobby the governments and proverbially change the world rather than using charity to prop up the existing system).

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Performancing | Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Corporation

I'm considering changing to this Firefox extension for much of my blogging. I haven't removed Deepest Sender as yet, but Performancing looks a bit more advanced. Found out about if from an article in the current Linux Format, which I subscribe to (Birthday Present from Deborah). This update was posted using Performancing. We'll see how we go.

Jessica is currently hiding upstairs in a grump after being shouted at for refusing to tidy her room. Hey ho.

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Letters to the Guardian

Fame at last! I emailed this to the Guardian following the Ruth Kelly story. I feel quite strongly that with a bit of perserverance and willingness to work together on both sides then mainstream can work for special needs. Alex's experience has not been perfect, but he has made progress. The school have worked well with us, there has been commitment on both sides. Kelly argued that she made the decision in the best interests of her child. I don't know enough to comment about that. But I wonder how much effort she put in to working with the local primary...

Amazon.co.uk: Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years: Books: Michael Palin:

This is my current reading material. Deb bought it for me to read over Christmas. I was a little reluctant as I don't normally read this sort of thing. But it's turned out to be rather interesting. Not just for the insight into Monty Python, but also for the life of a moderate celebrity in the 70's, and for 70's life in general. He chronicles, for instance, the very hot summer of 1976, when I remember visiting London at the age of 5 with my parents - and having an experience probably very similar to ours with Jessica and Alex in London in 2006 (a little fraught, quite stressful, but overall enjoyable). Palin himself comes across as quite a bland, normal person. And yet there is still the odd flash of one of the creators of Python. Much more interesting than I thought it would be.

Haven't really made a post about Christmas yet, so here it is.

I took quite a long time off over Christmas this year - from when the kids finished on the 21st through to the New Year. This was mainly to make sure there was someone to look after the kids, as Deb continues to have problems getting the time off she wants from her employer. (She's supposed to only work during term time, but they keep making it difficult for her, but that's another story.)

Went to visit one of my sisters on the Saturday - she had rented a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. It made a lovely trip out, especially as I hadn't seen her for ages. It was great for the children to see her again - and means that for the first time in living memory I've actually seen my whole family at some point during the year. (My parents visited in December, and we met my other sister in London in October.)

On Christmas Eve we made our now traditional visit to the cinema. Went to see Happy Feet, about dancing penguins. Alex lasted half an hour before running out and spent the rest of the movie running around the foyer, with me in attendance. Needless to say, this may not last to next year as a Harrison family tradition.

Christmas Day was a visit to Deb's parents in the morning and then home. We made the mistake of having a light lunch when we got back. Deb then cooked the full monty dinner for tea, but by that stage none of us really fancied it. I was a bit grumpy - not helped by the fact that I was coming down with a cold. Jessica was very happy with all her presents (Lego Star Wars from us - both physical lego, and games for her Gamecube and DS). Alex unfortunately was disappointed. We'd made the mistake of taking him to Hattons a few weeks earlier - and he'd set his heart on a Flying Scotsman engine and a few other things - none of which, of course, we'd planned for Father Christmas to provide. He spent most of the day asking why Father Christmas hadn't read the note he'd left out. Real tearjerker stuff - although he did cheer up eventually. So the day itself was a bit of a damp squib really.

By Boxing Day I was into a full-on head cold, really nasty one. So I don't think I left the house for the next 3 days. Deb gradually came down with it too, and we were flat out until the New Year.

Nice New Year though. I made a Japanese miso noodle soup and a rice and noodle hotpot (from the Wagamama) cookbook, plus some sushi rolls (with smoked salmon). It was fun to be doing strange experimental cooking again. They watched telly with the kids all afternoon. Can't remember what we watched - probably just BBC1 all the way through.

And that was it. Back to work on the 2nd. My new team starts on the 8th. I'm not as downbeat about it as I was, but it's still going to be a struggle. Keep you posted.