URGENT NEWS RE SWINE FEVER

My brother in law tried to ring the swine fever helpline but all he got was crackling...

Er, 'boom boom'?

GONNA GET MYSELF ELECTED...?

After seven years of working for a group of councillors I now find myself vying to become one. For the first time in my life I am standing properly for election, rather than simply being a paperless candidate.

It is nice to be thrust into the front line as I have spent years biting my tongue. No doubt the charming local Tories will get up to their usual tricks of not quite telling the truth about anything and accusing me of drinking the blood of infants [nothing was proven...] but my election plan is to give it back with both barrels.

It is difficult to hide my excitement and with luck and the gift of time I will document the events of the coming weeks hereon.

I have missed the chance to really go at the Tories during my last eight weeks of enforced leisure. My only thought now is 'bring it on'!

SO A POLITICIANS SMEARS ANOTHER POLITICIAN. AND THE STORY IS...?

I have been into politics since I was a child and would consider myself a political junkie. However, I am struggling with the whole Damian McBride smear story. The media is reporting this as if its the death knell for Gordon Brown and as if the fact that one political party smears another is somehow an earth shattering revelation. It isn't.

Even the usually excellent Andrew Grice in the Independent is wading into the fray, predicting doom for Brown next year. The trouble is that none of these commentators recognises that this story is fundamentally parochial. It is a Westminster Bubble issue which the average voter facing redundancy or repossession could not give a stuff about.

This, in my oh-so-humble opinion, is what gives politics a bad name. The country is falling to pieces around their ears and all politicians care about is name calling in the playground.

Maybe, in a nutshell, this is why Vince has become such an icon: because he is tediously interested in proper issues, like the economy and bees, the kinds of things which people actually care about.

To me the real story remains the fact that the Tories are playing all the right mood music but they still remain completely devoid of any substance. If the pundits are to be believed - and I wouldn't, would you? - the Tories are strolling to electoral success on the back of a sharp suit and a bunch of flowers.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to see someone say that the Damian McBride issue is simply not an issue and the devastation being wreaked all around us in the 'real world' may perhaps be given a slightly higher priority by the good people of Westminster.

Sadly, it isn't going to happen and the election next year will be decided on looks not substance.

WADDYA KNOW? THE LAW IS AN ASS!

I have just attended my first ever court case, a civil hearing before a judge at which someone I had a car accident with was claiming costs against me. This has been rumbling on for a year so in many ways I have been looking forward to resolving this.

I have completed statement after statement, drawn pictures until I could have given Tony Hart a run for his money and generally argued the toss about everything in detail.

Naturally, I did my best to tell the truth as the other person hit me, so it was in my interests to do so. It was their fault so where was the problem – or so I believed in my innocence...Also it was such a minor collision that I didn't even get my car fixed. I decided that the dent on my driver's door adds to my car's invulnerability in car parks and the like since it is such a pigsty that no one in their right mind would think or breaking into it or stealing it.

Unfortunately the hearing didn't take place in the real world. Oh no. It took place in the wacky world of motor insurance where night is day, where unicorns roam in Africa and where flying pigs flock across our skies.

As if by magic in this wonderful otherworld the accident moved to a different location, I did everything wrong, I pulled out in front of the other person – on a fast road with my baby daughter in in the car, as you would – and I lied about everything possible. Bastard!

The other person told such a wonderful tale that we needed to pass round the tissues at one stage. I cursed myself for being such a terrible driver and | felt for them as they revealed that, actually everything I believed – indeed knew – to be true as I was there at the time of the incident was complete and utter nonsense. I was ashamed.

I should of course have known for I have had one or two insurance claims before and the tales that are told have all been worthy of Hans Christian Anderson.

So now, having endured my first – and I hope only – court hearing and been told I am a liar, a cheat and a thoroughly bad egg I will remember to my dying breath that where cars are concerned the only thing to do is to lie, lie and lie again.

What a great system it is.

NB: the other party's insurance company was Direct Line and I would like to state for the the record that a bigger bunch of shysters and crooks does not exist this side of Helmand.

UBUNTU - THE SURPRISES JUST KEEP COMING

Two more impressive features of ubuntu this week.

First, I plugged in the family printer to see if it would work. At this point Windows would squeal that it needed new software, that the port was wrong, that the printer was not compatible and all sorts of tosh. When I previously tried to use the same printer with Windows Vista that was my evening gone. Ubuntu recognised the printer immediately and started printing within a minute without me needing to do anything daft or laboured. I just pressed print.

Second, my laptop battery has for some time been almost completely useless, giving only seconds of power before shutting down the computer. I always thought this was a hardware issue but it seems not. Now I have ubuntu the battery is working again. I do hope someone at Microsoft lands on this post by accident and at least has a slightly red face.

I am quite astounded at how poorly Windows is coming out against ubuntu. I am also amazed that Windows remains the world standard, a position it can't keep for much longer as more people like me make the break.

I LOVE PARON IN THE SPRINGTIME...

Right, serious campaign time. Jean Frenchman insists on calling our Capital 'Londres' [you can almost read the sneer] despite the fact that this is demonstrably wrong, does not in anyway accord with the proper name and is no easier to say in French than 'London'.

Yet still Nicholas 'I don't care, I get to sleep with Carla' Sarkozy is pictured at the G20 meeting in front of a podium on which - just for him - is written 'Londres'.

YOU'RE IN BL**DY LONDRES, MATEY, SO DO US THE HONOUR OF A LITTLE POLITENESS AND GET THE NAME RIGHT.

So, my campaign is that from now on in all official and unofficial mentions of the French capital, we call it 'Paron' until they realise this - among so many mistakes - and change their language to call London London.

If not, we shouldn't let them play in 2012.

UBUNTU UPDATE FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED

I've now been using this piece of software for several days with absolutely no problems. It is simpler than Windows, which some people would not like but which I absolutely adore. Openoffice is the writing and spreadsheet package and it is more basic than Word, although the last version of Word I got (2007) was so hopelessly fussy that this is a blessing. Whatever the very minor limitations of the new software I am still basking in the warm glow of a computer which actually works and which hasn't done anything daft in the entire time ubuntu has been working.

I am still peeved to have lost my old e-mails but this was almost certainly down to a faulty first installation rather than a serious fault with the software. In the first failed installation it asked me if I anted to migrate over my e-mails but them it went belly up. The second time I installed it the message didn't come up.

Hey ho, I can now cheerfully ignore a pile of work which had built up so every cloud has a silver lining.

GORDON HAS HIS DAY. COULD DAVE?

Here's a difficult thing to say. Gordon Brown looks confident and assured on the international stage and he is to be applauded for that. You can also almost hear the whooping and cheering from the Labour Lair as they look at pictures of Gordon and Obama schmoozing.

This is clearly his area of expertise: high level stuff which he seems to relish. By contrast his people skills are distinctly lacking which is why he would have been an asset for Labour had he continued as Chancellor but as PM he simply lacks the razzmatazz.

Now the reason for paying our damaged Prime Minister a compliment is not by way of wanting to be unduly nice to him, although that doesn't hurt in the vicious world of politics. What it throws up for me are all those continuing doubts about Dave and his capacity to 'bestride the world stage' or some such Sunday supplement tosh.

Dave has obvious abilities, not least his brilliant detoxifying of the Tory brand, although it is wonderfully amusing to see the occasional puff of green smoke creep out from under the lid he's metaphorically perched on, as Ken Clarke expounds on Europe or Eric Pickles hilariously defends the indefensible. I really can't wait for the Euros this year as John Tory ponders the relative peace which has reigned in his party for some years on this most foul-smelling of subjects and considers a good old bout of self-destruction once more.

Dave is clearly an excellent salesman, which should not be underestimated. He IS the Prime Minister in waiting but that is cause for a serious intake of breath at the prospect of him convening a G20 meeting or meeting with the US president. Could he cut the mustard?

The trouble Dave has is that he lacks substance and a strong team. God knows the Labour government is filled with pygmies but the 64,000 Euro question is whether this bunch of Eton-dominated Tories actually have the wherewithal to actually effect any change if they take control next year.

The answer for me remains a big fat no.