The latest....

The bibliography is now complete - so as long as my supervisor doesn't want any more amendments, its done! Had a break from cooking last night and visited the very good Puschka restaurant in Rodney Street. Very good food, and atmosphere, but the service can be a bit haphazard.

Went into college today, to collect some exam papers to mark, which I shall do over the next couple of days.

Have also been doing a bit of 'catching up', organised a meeting of the Gay and Lesbian Police Liaison Group for a couple of weeks time. Also, on Sunday, spent a very pleasant afternoon over at Neil's (hi Neil; hope you get to read this! ) Fellow Eurovision enthusiast, we watched 1965, and 2002. I'm pleased to see that the singer of one of my alltime favourite Eurovision entries, Chiara, who sang The One That I Love, in 1998 for Malta, is singing in their National Final again. I do hope she wins - its one of her own songs too.

Looks as if there is definitely going to be a general election this year. I don'tknow who I'll be voting for. Not Tory, obviously. I have no intention of going through the reasons why, it should be obvious. But I don't really want to vote Labour. I see no reason why I should support a slavish Blairite toady whose only rebellion has been in the service of her religion in opposing the Mental Capacity Bill. She thinks it quite OK to vote to kill a few thousand innocent Iraqis in the cause of re-electing Bush and oil supplies, but won't allow people to make their own decisions about their own death. If we had a halfway decent MP who thought that her job was about natiuonal politics, rather than behaving like some sort of unqualified busybody welfare worker, I may be persuadable. But Ms. Claire Curtis-Thomas MP doesn't fulfil what I want to see from an MP. She is the sort of person who could easily fit into any political party ; the fact that she has no qualms in appointing a known Tory (who has NEVER voted Labour in his life!) to compose most of her public statements and speeches says it all.

So, it looks like the LibDems for me this time. There are many things I approve of in their policies in any case - much stronger commitment to civil liberties - more enthusiastic towards Europe, and so on.

But it was encouraging to see Charles Clarke make it clear that he is not going to bring forth legislation to make it OK to shoot anyone who comes near your house . I can imagine Blunkett issuing us with all the guns. No doubt if Labour get back in, the repulsive Blunkett will be back in some guise or another - another Daily Mail styl;e social conservative. And what about Ruth Kelly? Known homophobe ( she has avoided every single vote on anything gay-related), against abortion, contraception, a member of Opus dei, that far-right neo-fascist organisation well known for its support of Franco in Spain. How can someone with views like these even be accepted as a member of the Labour Party, let alone one of its senior ministers?

I hope the electors of Bolton West see sense and turf her out next time. The omens are good, the majority is only 5000 and there'snot a single Labour councillor left in the seat. Its one of the few places where I'd say it doesn't matter if a Tory does get elected, and it may even be worth voting Tory just to ensure Kelly's demise. people like that are a menace within any sort of left-wing, progressive movement.