I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened.

If you don't know who Will Rogers is, he's got a page on Wiki! But anyway, I'm referring to the taxman and my power supplier from the last posting I made. Methinks the taxman is after bigger fish than me, thank goodness, so I only got stumped for a bill for class 2 national insurance (yep, another tax we have to pay!) And my energy supplier didn't duplicate my account, they transferred it from my landlady to me - and she's quite fierce!! May the Lord have mercy on their souls!

Very, VERY pleased that the McCann parents got their arguido status lifted this week. Hopefully, that will lead to some better fundraising to help find Madeleine, and a whole bunch of other disappeared kids. No doubt, there will be loads of other related stuff out in the press in the next month or two relating to the investigation. Oh, and the book published by Chief Inspector Cloucao (sorry, don't know if I've got the font to put a Portuguese cedilla on the 'c' ).

I do have the very discomforting feeling that nobody was really ever looking for this girl - they were too busy trying to pin a murder on the parents.

Also in the news, as I mentioned a long while ago, there was completion in the case of the mystery canoeist today - the bloke who faked his own demise, and hopped it to Panama. Six years each in prison for him and his missus, for fraud (amongst other things). Surprising how the wife got a longer sentence. She only play-acted the grieving widow. He did the fakery, stole a dead baby's birth certificate and identity and fraudulently obtained a passport. Oh well, in the UK, you're best off committing mass murder as you'll get a shorter sentence - woe betide you if you dare steal money from the government or insurance industry; you'll get locked up for life!

And on that, errr, cynical note, I bid you 'good day, Sir'.