I would like a reporter to stop me in the street and ask me what I think about the price of petrol, child abuse, salaries of politicians, corporate executives and crime rates. I also would like to know what idiot makes up the questions and for what purpose.

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It was just a matter of time before Mrs Bhutto was murdered and nobody can be surprised by this tragic event.

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Sleaze has once again reared its ugly head even in this most prestigious British event. A comedian must be pretty desperate for a laugh if he has to resort to pointing at his crotch and raving on about dogs being attracted to its odour.

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This morning on TV there was a report from China which told of the difficulty of being a Christian there. Church services have to be held in secret because the government only permits certain Christian communities to pray. The legal ones have to vow their allegiance to Communism. I had not heard of this about China before. Of course, I knew that the Falun Gong and Falun Dafa had problems with freedom of worship, but did not realise that the Chinese Government fears organised Christianity so much.

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France has come kicking and screaming into the 21st Century with a ban on smoking in public places. The ban had been approved and came into effect on New Year’s Day in 2007.

Now they’ve gone one step further and are going to ban smoking in restaurants on the 1st January 2008. Now this is quite a shock for me because I can’t believe that there won’t be another French Revolution over this issue.

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Today, I’m waving a white flag in surrender. Condemned and despondent about it all, I’m giving up the movies. And this time I mean it.

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We used to have exquisitely romantic names for perfumes such as “Chanel No.5″, “Arpège”, “Evening in Paris’, and “L’air du Temps” by Nina Ricci. Those names evoked glamour and passion and when I dabbed them delicately along the pulse points on my wrists I felt as if I were transported to a place where life was special.

This week I visited a perfumery. There are still some classic perfumes but there is also an irritating addition to the range.

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Am I condemned to never again see a film that’s worth seeing? Following the disappointment of “Twice Upon a Time”,” I was longing to see a film that would redeem the movie industry. The reviews were encouraging about this French ensemble comedy/drama/whatever, and having been involved with films in the past, I still have a soft spot for the medium.

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When our sons were young we imposed a rule that there should be no hitting. Differences were to be resolved with discussion. It’s a fact that you could hear the discussions miles away, but when I look back through my rose-coloured glasses we had a pretty peaceful household. Isn’t the mind wonderful the way it shoves unpleasant thoughts into the subconscious. There was one incident, however, that we remember vividly.

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What a coincidence! Last night (see previous post) I lamented the decline of teachers and today the paper is full of articles on school standards. Two such articles are “Uni gets tough on command of English” (The Australian, Dec.19) and another (also from toady’s “Australian”) which announces “Grammar tests return to classroom.” This second one says that in May the government will include an extra “language convention test” on spelling, grammar and punctuation in its national literacy test. Forgive me for asking, but aren’t grammar, spelling and punctuation an integral part of literacy already?

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