"People could be evicted from their own homes if they cause a nuisance to their neighbours, under a new action plan for Tony Blair's "respect agenda." " - source

Jolly good, I now don't have to worry about my own problems or feelings, the Government has said something unbelievably crass. If the Conservatives came out with drivel like this it would be villified as "knee-jerk reactionism" or "flagrant opportunism" or some other mildly derogatory 'ism'. However, this from a Labour Government is the new Tough Tony - loves the jobs you hate...

It's a classic example of just about every policy introduced into this country since 1997, badly thought through and wrongheaded in the first place, it won't be possible to implement it and it will cost millions of pounds of public money to buy in more votes - sorry - I mean buy in more civil servants to administer the scheme.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said there would be an "explicit focus on changing the culture of society". This from a man who wishes to have people locked up for months on end without trial and have us all watched like a sort of State-sponsored reality television show.

I wonder whether Jack Straw and Tony Blair will be attending parenting classes? They surely should since both of them have had children caught behaving badly in public; drug abuse and underage drinking is exactly the sort of "nuisance behaviour" that these new measures are supposed to curb after all.

"In a speech in Downing Street, Mr Blair said he accepted that on-the-spot fines had reversed the burden of proof for some crimes. But traditional justice methods were too cumbersome and too remote from reality, he said. "

Ah - I see, sorry Tony, the old idea of innocent until proven guilty shouldn't apply to 'yobs' or 'thugs' on the streets. You're right, maybe we should just let policemen summarily birch the offenders there and then? Typical New Labour missing the point - and taking the opportunity to chip away another foundation of justice. What Blair means by cumbersome and remote is that he cannot easily influence the system to play the way he wants it to.

Anyway, it's the children of Bristol I feel sorry for. Now that their schools are bribing them to work hard for their GCSEs they'll have some money to pay the on-the-spot fines at least...

Congratulations to Adam Adamson, the director of the Narnia film. He's done a splendid job especially given the brilliance of the books.

I hope that the other films in the series are as good and that it gets the recognition it deserves as one of the classic fantasy stories of all time. {I think it's certainly better than that Potter fellow, much better written for a start!}

The one puzzling thing is that the first book in the Chronicles is actually "The Magician's Nephew" which explains a little of the background to the professor. Still, there's plenty of time to include that, probably as little flashbacks or something - the book is only short after all.

Anyway, I'm back at work now and waiting for March to arrive bringing my birthday and hopefully a place at Bar School.