I just made the radical move of taking a few days' leave during term-time to come and make a long overdue visit to Bessie and Ted in Cairnbulg (or the 'Belger' as the locals call it). Had a nice flight up and then annoyed the locals with my slow driving on the way out (I'm not an eagle at the best of times but I'm Mr. Magoo when driving at night). I felt sensible, though, when I heard about the latest horrible death on the Aberdeen-Fraserburgh road last week.

Bessie and Ted are in bed now so I'm sitting in the kitchen trying to catch up with encyclopedia reviewing in the hope that I'll also find some time to finish my own articles in the next few days. It's quite nice sitting in a quiet kitchen with a newly-double-framed Apoa and Kiloh watching over me while I work. Compensates a bit for missing Apoa's dramatic performance at school tonight (that's literal, as in acting in a play ;-)

I also enjoyed discovering Newsnight Scotland where the debate was about which kind of alternative the Scottish Socialist Party should be offering and how left wing it should be. A nice change from the election debate in England which, as Johann Hari put it, is all about whether Blair or Howard can seem the most rabidly right wing.

I'd have quoted Johann Hari's piece directly but, despite having paid 60p to read the print version earlier today, it costs another quid to read it on the web. I decided to go for it and went through some form-filling which included a question where you tick to receive spam followed instantly by a question where you tick not to receive spam (BT Click&Buy are the ********s who are responsible for this) but then they deactivated my account with no explanation at the end of the process B-}

It was interesting to read Johann Hari's piece straight after reading George Orwell on the rampant spread of socialism around the world in 1948 earlier today.

B-)