Having breathed a sigh of relief in my last post that Manchester didn’t get the snow reported at the time, I can say we did get a bit on Tuesday. I know, because the first footstep I took outside met with a surface like glass, and I ended up crashing to the floor, twisting my ankle and doing something painful to my big toe. I now hobble around the house looking mournful and pathetic, unable to do much other than potter. I can carry on doing work, so I’m not a complete loss to society.

I think, as I fell, I had it in mind to concentrate on using my ass to cushion me, because a work associate did something seriously painful to her elbow last year falling with arms outstretched. When I informed a friend of my predicament, he exclaimed – “Isn’t that something old people do?”. Oh yeah… I feel the healing waves of compassion and concern washing over me.

Current reading:

The Japanese intend to chuck 100 paper planes into orbit. Constructed from silicon treated, heatproof paper and measuring around 20 cm in length, the places will depart from the International Space Station and head earthward. The planes will cover around 300 miles in their journey and most probably land in the sea. However, I’m midly concerned what might happen if they don’t! How much damage can a paper place cause if it has travelled down from orbit and covered about 300 miles to really top up base velocity? Can we expect people to suffer severe injuries from smouldering paper planes travelling at terminal velocity? What about birds? Or planes? Has someone actually taken a moment to really think this through?

Suicide bombs. Unrest in Chad. Public sector pay cuts. And Holly Willoughby’s cleavage. I had to raise them again, because another tabloid did yesterday, with another front page picture and a claimed plethora of complaints. To be honest, Holly wore a nice dress with dropped frontage, but nothing eye-watering… nothing like Jodie Marsh’s number from ‘The Mirror’ last week.

Quite why this poor woman has drawn such ire from the press beggars belief – I mean, these articles question her judgement and highlight the distress she’s causing (to about four people)… while selling more papers with some nice colour photos. The paper noted that Phillip Schofield complimented Holly on her dress as a veiled reference to all the media coverage and that Holly appeared to look down towards her cleavage as if acknowledging what he co-presenter really meant. To me, the picture looked like Holly had decided to refer to her script in a moment of amnesia bought on by embarrassment.

Of course, you know if she comes on next week dressed in a burka, she’ll still get a couple of pages coverage in all the gutter press…

I was less than shocked to discover today that The Mirror has managed to stretch out Holly’s cleavage to a further day of discussion with a 2-page article discussing the right and wrong amount to show in public. Obviously just a chance to show a dozen or more pictures of celebrities in flesh revealing dresses, from the tasteful and currently highly popular Angelina Jolie to the utterly deranged and hardly dressed Jodie Marsh. With death in Kenya, incompetence and nepotism in Parliament, and street violence on the rise in the UK – you can see why women and their breasts demand so many front page inches.

I received some finely crafted spam today… the sort that really has you convinced from the outset:

Dear user!
We let you know,
that you have 6 unread messages in your letter-box.
Please, check them here:
URL REMOVED
Best regards,
Administration

I mean… that’s good, isn’t it! Never mind those mails from PayPal, eBay and that bank you’ve never had a current account with in Australia, this one really shows craftsmanship. I mean, what was I thinking leaving all those messages unread. No wonder I don’t have any friends on Facebook… I’m just ignoring opportunities thrust upon me by caring parties as yet unknown. One of those messages might be from that nice man in Nigeria who needs my help with his $34 million fortune!

I’m off to check…