I'm a politician - get me out of here.

One thing that I've noticed with the upcoming election, is the amount of coverage it is getting on television. It seems, worryingly, to have become the next form of sad reality television that the TV companies seem determined to foist upon us. I don't know what is worse - Total Wipeout, or a presidential-style leaders debate that seems to champion style and PR over actual substance. And that is just what is happening.

It got me thinking a lot. I don't remember anything like this for any previous election, and I've voted in a few now, so I must have been paying attention then in some way. I just don't remember TV executives getting their grubby little mitts on it all. How would previous big names in politics have fared? How would Winston Churchill, Clement Atlee, William Gladstone or Benjamin Disraeli have fared? I suspect that some of the greatest leaders that there have been would have fallen flat on their faces when forced to compete in the cult of spin and personality. I think that this obsession with style and how politicians appear on television is actually damaging for the country. It really should not be a popularity contest (since when did the head girl at my old school ever turn out to actually be the most competent person for the job?) and be about actually who really could run a country well, be a strong leader and - more importantly - get things done and stand up for Britain on the world stage.

I am beginning to despair when I see trailors for the next gladitorial jousting debate dressed up like reality TV. Is this really a good way to pick the bunch of people who will be running GB PLC for the next five years? Of course there should be a way to find out exactly what the parties stand for and what they are proposing to do. But this is not that way to do it. What next? Putting the leaders of the political parties on Total Wipeout? Sending them all off to the jungle to eat worms? The cynical side of me really does wonder whether some television exec really has - with total seriousness - suggested some of this crap TV as a way to run the political debate in the run up to the election.

Could the last person to leave GB please remember to switch off the lights? Never have I been so underwhelmed by the way politics has been commercialised by the TV companies.

On morality and religion.

I was interested to read today on the BBC news site about Christians and their ability to swing the vote. Something that seemed to be coming across was a suggestion about religion and its influence on morality of people.

Whilst it may not have explicitly been said, it is something that I've seen too many times suggesting that religious people are somehow 'more moral' than people who aren't religious. I find this somewhat offensive, given that I have morals, and to some degree I suppose everyone has. I don't need some book written thousands of years ago to tell me what to do - I have common sense that does that job for me. In some ways, people who diligently follow the writings in a book are faced with a series of contradictions, and suggestions that don't relate anymore to modern standards. I am told that there is somewhere in the Bible a suggestion that it is okay to sell your daughter into slavery to settle debts (but not, cureiously enough, to sell your son).

Quite apart from slavery being incompatible with modern standards, that smacks of sex discrimination. Does that mean that diligent Christians agree with that? I suspect certainly not; but then that raises all sorts of questions about conveniently ignoring one part of the Bible whilst championing another. Of course, life is all about compromise, and maybe what that tells us is that knowing when to compromise and when to chose your own way is something that makes a person's morality stronger.

I am not Christian. Nor am I Jewish or Muslim. I do, however, have a perfectly good set of morals. I know that stealing is wrong, and an internal sense of this right/wrong stops me from ever considering stealing. I know that kiddie fiddling is wrong. I know that queue jumping is also wrong, and would not dream of doing it. I know fraud is wrong. I am aware of lying and its wrongs, but also aware that sometimes little lies can be helpful in preserving other people's feelings (you won't, therefore, find me marching up to a complete stranger in the street and announcing "you smell like stale urine", even if they actually do - it becomes the unspoken 'Elephant in the room').

I read the Bible as a child. I had an upbringing that involved school assemblies that were Christian orientated. I also, in later years, read the Koran (just to see what the fuss was about). To be honest, I've read lots of other things too and the book that probably had a greater influence on my morals was 'A Companion to Ethics' edited by Peter Singer. Just because I don't believe in the big bad sky bully God doesn't make me an immoral person. I might even go as far to say that some-one who lives there life exclusively in accordance to a religious text is allowing themselves to be led by fallible writings (how many differences are there between translations and subsequent versions through the ages?) without applying their own common sense. It is easy to become biased without realising it, just as it is easy to be duped by not questioning.

I'm perfectly happy with my morals, and don't need religion to make me a moral person. I get annoyed when seeing suggestions by some people that they should 'question the religious views of their prospective parliamentary candidates' as if somehow believing in an imaginary friend God makes that person better able to be an MP; it does not. If some of the religious fundamentalists are to be believed, it's 'Love thy neighbour, unless they happen to be gay, black, foreign, of a different religious persuasion, a woman, poor (delete where applicable)'. Certainly not.

As a follow-up to the swearbox post...

I do think that as a society we have to recognise the power of certain words and the reactions they cause. They may just be sounds on a pedantic level, but the meaning they convey can be far more powerful.

It is also true that certain words have a time and a place and a responsibility to take others around us into consideration. Can a child really understand at the age of three that going around shouting "f**k!" all the time is as inappropriate as me sitting in crowded shopping centre talking about the intricacies of open bowel surgery in a loud voice.

A big hello!

Hello and welcome, by the way, to fan #80.

Fire up the swearbox.

When I was small, my parents didn't swaer around me or my sisters. I suppose it was the good parenting thing, as children are notorious for picking up phrases and words quite quickly once they reach a certain age. Even when I was older, the 'f' word was never used, and there were a whole host of other words that never ever featured. Years later I discovered that my Father certainly knows and will use on occasions the 'f' word. It's just that he refrained from doing so around his children until long after we all passed 18.

More often these days I keep hearing foul mouthed parents with their little children in tow. These children will sadly become the foul mouthed future of our society. I remember living in Durham, and hearing the mother next door shouting to their child who could have only been no more than 8 "Put your f**king shoes on!". Predictably, that evening when the child came back from school, he spent some time gleefully in the back garden repeating the phrase his mother had managed to 'teach' him that morning over and over again at high volume.

More recently I have heard through the paper walls that divide us from nextdoor, the same foul mouthed language being used when trying to get children ready for school. Is it only me that regards swearing at small and easily influenced children to be very bad parenting indeed? Whenever I am around my neice and nephew, I always am careful to modify my own language. I actually find myself doing what my parents did, and cutting out all those swaer words and slang which would raise eyebrows at playgroup if the little child started repeating them. The word 'poo' has been dusted off and brought out of retirement. What a strange word that is. At least children won't be learning the words 'shit' and 'turd' off me.

Zoë tells me that I'm from a privelaged background, and I guess she is right. But it still doesn't change the fact that teaching children foul language is very wrong and very bad parenting. It's just a shame that it seems increasingly other people don't share that view around their own children.

Can you feel the sparks from my Bri-nylon?

An Australian man built up so much static electricity in his clothes as he walked that he burned carpets, melted plastic and sparked a mass evacuation.

Fear my shell suit!

One of those strange days full of intrigue.

I've been teaching Zoë to drive over the last few weeks. It came about partly with her niggling me to get her insured on the car, and partly because - as it turned out - I got a discount for insuring her on the car when the insurance came up for renewal. Something about a 'partner's discount' and that when you pass 25, insurance isn't as expensive as for younger people, regardless.

She's getting good quite quickly. No longer does she take out unwary wheelie bins and veer towards the kerb every time she changes gear. Bunny hops are a thing of the past, and I'm proud of her progress. The last two frontiers are confidence (always something that comes slowly) and lane discipline. One of my pet narks is people who use every lane (wrongly) at roundabouts, so I'm determined to make sure that she isn't one of them.

She's out on the campaign trail today. Around about now she is at Bolton town hall with William Hague smiling and looking pretty for the television news crews. She really wants to enter politics seriously at some point, so it is a good exercise. It will be the third time that she has met William Hague, so maybe he might start remembering her name? That can only be a good thing for a potential career within the Conservative party.

In other news, the car that belonged to the shady people who came to our door last week asking if there was "any money in [our house]" turns out to have been a false numberplate. The Police did a search, and even tried permutations of the number, but to no avail - there are no green Fords with that numberplate or any similar to it still officially in existence. It only adds further mystery to that strange few minutes. Aparently it isn't unheard of for Eastern Europeans to turn up and ask for money (in the hope that they will be paid to go away?). We've been told to report it immediately if they ever come back. The Police have issued advice to their people to be on the lookout for the car in the local area. But how weird?

Tweet, tweet - caution vehicle reversing!

There is a bird that comes and sits and sings in the tree in our back garden. It comes every day and tweets out its tune. There is nothing strange about that, I know. What is strange though is the way that its singing perfectly - and I mean perfectly - mimics the old-style reversing alarms that bin lorries used to have in the late 1990s.

The first time that I heard it I really thought that it could be an old J-reg Seddon reaking of last week's cabbage. But it wasn't. Instead there was this little bird fluttering from branch to branch. Just as well really, as I didn't fancy having my car blocked in - that lane is too narrow for a real lorry.

It made me think about the calls that birds make. They must each learn their calls from their parents, by listening to them. That would have been all well and good for millenia, until humans came up with glorious noise pollution. Suddenly there were mimickable sounds that were being blasted out day after day. The birds are listening it seems, and they are picking it up. That means this is a bird that will never sing its proper cry again. Nor will its chicks. How many bird calls are being lost to this steady increase in noise pollution? I suspect that give it a hundred years and bird calls might be very different sounding indeed.

How many drivers can drive their car into the wall of heroes in two hours?

I'm sat here at the computer typing away at the new book. I hadn't realised just how enjoyable it is to write just plain old literary fiction. No sci-fi, no dragons, no lasers and certainly no roving death star-like moons out to destroy the planet of the funky retro hairstyles. I can see why so many authors write this kind of stuff. I just hope that my effort comes close enough to stand a chance on the bookshelves.

I'm watching the 2006 Canadian F1 Grand Prix. It shows me how much F1 has changed even over four years. It's not a bad race so far, though I have to be honest that I'm merely listening as I write and only occasionally dropping into the video feed when excitement happens. Certainly compared to last Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix it was far more exciting. I think there is a lot of merit in the idea of spraying the track with water. It seems that in the last couple of years that the only interesting races have been those that have featured rain on the day.

Election day has been announced. Looks like it'll be fun. Zoë has got me helping her with the leafleting campaign tomorrow. Luckily this time the conservatives haven't given us the really rough estate (though I find a man with a can of beer and manky Y-fronts really about as unmenacing as anyone can get as he screws up a leaflet that just came through his letterbox whilst glaring at me). We also need to stop off on the way back and buy beans. Remember kids: you can never have too many tins of beans.

I have discovered the full scary extent of just how bad the double glazing job on this house was. I think the cowboy who fitted them didn't need a ladder. Instead I gather he just lassooed the chimney whilst his horse waited at the door. Really, they have holes around the edges that from outside I can see the plasterboard of the inside. I've called the landlord three times now, but he never returns his calls. There are other issues too (leaky pipe, flickering electrics, mold in a bedroom that keeps on coming back). If we get no joy there will be a nasty letter and, if no reply comes from that, we'll just get the repairs done and dock the cost from the rent money. I bet you the landlord will appear miraculously the moment the rent money falters to pay for the building work.

I can breathe, as long as no-one prods me too much.

The more eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that updates have been a little few and far between. I make no apologies, given how ill I have been. Hopefully I am over the worst, but a chest infection that has been the follow on from a bad cold has floored me over the last week or so. I had pneumonia as a child which left scarring, and that in turn has left me with difficulty in fighting off any chest infection. Thank goodness I don't have asthma too!

On the writing front things have begun to progress again. I'm getting into the swing of TLSOW, and it is starting to fill out and grow. In some ways it is nice to come back to something that I wrote quite a while ago now. I am distanced from the creative process, and I guess it makes it easier to see the words as how an unbiased reader might. At any rate, in places the text seemed to deal with the subject matter rather too briefly. That's more than likely as a direct result of me trying (and in the most part failing) to keep the original word total down to short story length. At least now I have free reign to expand as much as I like. There's a really nice story in TLSOW and I do hope I can do it justice. So far, for the number crunchers amongst you, I've passed the 23,500 word mark. Of course, some of that was the original long short story, though I have deleted and rewritten an awful lot of it - when you expand something like this, sometimes it is easier to start again with whole sections than to tinker.