As Life Returns To Normal

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[Listening to: What's So Funny 'bout Peace Love And Understanding - Elvis Costello - Armed Forces [UK] Disc 1]

Richard Curtis was the scriptwriter on, among other hits, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary, and the director of Love Actually. He is taking a year off film work to campaign for Make Poverty History: Don't forget the rest of the world. Now you may not like his films (I'm actually a huge fan of Notting Hill - it's what I watch when I want to be cheered up), but you can't do anything but applaud this effort.

Whilst on the subject of films (loose connection I know, but follow me here), according to today's Telegraph the Deep Impact probe will be launched this week on a spectacular mission to blow a chunk the size of Rome's Colosseum out of a comet: Spacecraft counts down to blast-off and a close encounter with a comet. So, a reason for all non American's to put July 4th in their diaries this year.

The award-winning writer Margaret Atwood is developing a machine that will allow remote book-signing , giving her readers (of which I'm one) the chance to get a signed copy of one of her books without her having to leave her home in Canada: Online answer to writer's angst. Now, does that make it worth less for those who care about these things?

For christmas I was lucky enough (amongst many great gifts) to get a DVD of Long Way Round, the Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman road trip /circumnavigation of the globe by motorcycle, going from London to New York - the long way round. An excerpt from the book (which I am going to have to buy)can be found in Novembers Men's Journal. If there was ever a story that made me want to give up my job.....